
THE ICICLE 
MELTS 


HELEN E.WAITE 






































\ 









V 


THE “ICICLE’’ MELTS 





The Lancys have courage! — Page 22 . 








































THE “ICICLE” MELTS 


A STORY FOR GIRLS 


By 

HELEN ELMIRA WAITE 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
ELIZABETH WITHINGTON 



BOSTON 


LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO. 














fZ7 

leu 


Copyright, 1929, 

By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 


All Rights Reserved 


The “ Icicle ” Melts 



Printed in U. S. A. 

SEP 18 1329 

©CU 1245R 




To My Parents 


A Garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! 

Rose plot, 

Fringed pool, 

Ferned grot, 

The veriest school of Peace; and yet the fool con¬ 
tends that God is not— 

Not God! in Gardens! when the eve is cool? 

Nay, but I have a sign: 

’T is very sure God walks in mine. 

—Thomas Edwaed JBbown. 


> 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Phyllis the Eavesdropper . . 11 

II. Phyllis Chooses a Strange Birth¬ 
day Present.25 

III. Phyllis Learns the “ Horridest 

Word ”.40 

IV. Phyllis Begins Her Education . 51 

V. Joyce Introduces “ Jeremiah’s 

Pride ”.64 

VI. Phyllis Enters the Land of 

Heart’s Desire .... 72 

VII. Phyllis Agrees with Shakespeare 86 

VIII. The Interference of Jerry . . 94 

IX. Jerry Prescribes a Tonic . . 107 

X. Fire Maiden.118 

XI. Hillcrest Has a Surprise . .134 

XII. “ Thy Thunder Showers ! ” . . 151 

XIII. After Vacation.167 

XIV. “ Thorny Path ». 182 

XV. Kits Uses Strategy . . . .194 

XVI. Shipwreck.207 


7 



8 


CONTENTS 


XVII. The Prize Winners .... 222 

XVIII. The Business of an Icicle . . 231 

XIX. “ To Warm the Hearts of Lonely 

Mortals ”. 247 

XX. The Promise of a Lancy . . . 259 

XXI. The Campaign Ends .... 266 

XXII. Phyllis Hears of a Faery Prin- 

cesse. 276 

XXIII. “DoeYeNextThynge” ... 286 

XXIV. “ Phyllis the Icicle ” Disappears . 298 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Lancys have courage! (Page22) Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

But she didn’t sound glad . . . 202 

Her hand reaching out suddenly for 
Miss Hawthorn’s . . 256 

Joyce still enjoyed teasing her cousin . 292 


9 


> 


THE “ICICLE” MELTS 


CHAPTER I 

PHYLLIS THE EAVESDROPPER 

Phyllis turned her back on the very miser¬ 
able-looking girl in her mirror and looked up 
at the picture hanging beside her bed. 
“ Motherdy,” she said, “ you certainly have 
got a little stupid for a daughter! Nobody 
who wasn’t stupid would be afraid to go to a 
party, would they? ” 

The picture-girl looked down from her 
frame while Phyllis struggled with the last 
aggpavatingly elusive snaps. Phyllis had 
only a dim memory of her mother, but the 
picture-Phyllis had been her daughter’s con¬ 
fidante ever since she was placed over the foot 
of her bed to comfort the little Phyllis-who- 
was-af raid-of-the-dark. 

“ I wish I didn’t always act like an idiot at 
parties! ” whispered Phyllis softly. 

11 


12 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


The picture-Phyllis had very nice eyes. 
If you looked at them long enough, you felt 
that they smiled at you. It almost seemed as 
if her mother knew that even the envelope 
containing the invitation to Connie Rich- 
ardon’s birthday-dance had made Phyllis’ heart 
drop down and down and down until she won¬ 
dered if it would ever stop. It wasn’t always 
pleasant to feel as if you were a foreigner in 
a strange country where nobody knew any¬ 
thing about your ways and you knew nothing 
about theirs, and that was the feeling Phyllis 
Lancy had at a party. She lived such a se¬ 
cluded life with her dignified grandfather and 
her quiet, correct governess in the stately old 
Lancy house that it did seem as if it was a 
separate country from the one the boys and 
girls she met at her dancing-classes and the 
parties to which she was politely invited be¬ 
cause she was Mr. Jeremiah Lancy’s grand¬ 
daughter, lived in. And sometimes Phyllis 
felt as if they spoke a very different language, 
for when they began to talk about school and 
games and camping it left her as bewildered 
as if they had been talking in Hindustani. 


PHYLLIS THE EAVESDROPPER 13 


All that Phyllis knew about such things was 
what she had learned from her eagerly-read 
books. Mr. Jeremiah Lancy was a busy 
gentleman to whom it never occurred that his 
granddaughter might be lonely and wishing 
for the friendship of somebody a trifle younger 
than Miss Patterson or himself, and Phyllis 
didn’t tell him. Mr. Lancy wasn’t the sort of 
person you told things to. He had very de¬ 
cided views on certain subjects. Phyllis had 
a governess because her grandfather disap¬ 
proved of modern schools. Pie objected to 
girls’ camps, and he didn’t like girls who 
played tennis. 

If Phyllis’ mother hadn’t been in such a 
hurry to leave her little daughter and follow 
Phyllis’ father into that land of Far Away, 
Phyllis probably wouldn’t have been the shy, 
lonely, friend-hungry “ Phyllis the Friend¬ 
less ” who wanted to know other girls more 
than anything else in the world, but who was 
dressing for Connie Richardon’s birthday- 
dance with very reluctant fingers. 

No, Phyllis didn’t care particularly about 
going to Connie’s, and she didn’t believe Connie 


14 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


cared particularly about having her come, but 
since she was going—she upraised her chin 
(the chin the Lancys said “ denoted deter¬ 
mination,” and other people said looked “ stub¬ 
born,”) to a firm little angle. 

“ I will! ” she vowed to the other Phyllis, “ I 
just will! I’ll have one good time, see if I 
don’t! But oh, Motherdy, I wish you could 
come and show me how! ” 

“ Come, dear, I am ready.” It was Miss 
Patterson’s voice. Phyllis turned swiftly. 
Then softly she whirled back to the picture 
again and blew it a swift kiss. 

“ Good-bye, Motherdy! ” 

But despite her resolutions and Mrs. Rich- 
ardon’s and Connie’s friendly efforts, she 
had the old “ left out ” feeling, and it was the 
same miserable game of watching. Phyllis 
hoped she wasn’t showing how forlorn she felt, 
but kind-hearted, watchful-eyed Connie Rich- 
ardon saw it at last and drew her brother Her¬ 
bert aside. 

“ Herbert,” she said pleadingly, “ do a birth¬ 
day favor for me? Have you seen Phyllis 
Lancy to-night? ” 



PHYLLIS THE EAVESDROPPER 15 


“ The girl who looks like an icicle? ” in¬ 
quired her brother. “ I have.” 

Connie stifled a giggle. Tall, slender 
Phyllis, in her all-white dress, alone in the 
happy crowd did look like something of the 
sort. 

Connie laid a coaxing hand on her brother’s 
arm. “ Won’t you go over and thaw her out? 
You can do it!” Connie knew her brother’s 
reputation along the thawing line, but Her¬ 
bert looked doubtfully in the icicle’s direction. 

“ Do you suppose she wants to be thawed? ” 

Connie laughed, but she stuck to her point. 
“Yes! Any girl would! Please go, Herbert.” 

“ All right,” Herbert’s air was resigned, 
“ I’ll go, but I doubt if your theory holds good 
in the Icicle’s case. Little Miss Lancy isn’t 
‘ any girl.’ ” 

Connie watched him cross to Phyllis’ corner, 
and gave a satisfied little nod when she saw 
him arrive there. Somewhere he had dropped 
his martyr-like air, and his manner was as 
charming as a boy’s manner could be, when 
he asked Phyllis Lancy if she objected to his 
company. 


16 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

Herbert did his best along the melting line, 
but Phyllis was always frankly disgusted with 
herself whenever she remembered the next 
half-hour. Oh, why were her words so silly 
as to stick in her throat just when she wanted 
them to come out? Why couldn’t she be like 
other girls! 

“ Connie says she’s awfully glad she was 
born in poinsettia time. She says she thinks 
they’re the prettiest flower she knows. I 
think it’s because she looks like ’em.” 

Phyllis’ eyes followed his to where Connie, 
with her red head above her green dress, happy 
and laughing, stood in the merriest group of 
all. It was evident Connie knew the right 
things to say at the right minute! 

“ Yes,” said Phyllis a little wistfully, “ yes, 
she’s very pretty and—and happy-looking! ” 

Phyllis was too busy being ashamed of her¬ 
self to want to talk to the picture that night. 
Herbert Richardon had been as nice as a boy 
could be, and she—Phyllis shook her fist 
angrily at the girl in her mirror—had acted 
like a stick! 

Even the Aunt Margaret-letter the postman 



PHYLLIS THE EAVESDROPPER 17 


brought next morning didn’t stop the uncom¬ 
fortable twinges her memory gave her. Per¬ 
haps it made them a little worse. Aunt Mar- 
garet-letters were dear things! They always 
sounded as if she was so near that all you 
would have to do would be to put out your 
hand and touch hers. But this letter told 
Phyllis all about the holiday parties Joyce 
was enjoying, and the ice-carnival Parkview 
was going to hold, and the basket-ball game 
Hillcrest had almost lost. Phyllis usually 
loved the things Aunt Margaret wrote about 
Joyce and Hillcrest, but to-day it was dif¬ 
ferent. She put down the letter. She wasn’t 
going to cry. Phyllis was not the crying sort 
of girl, but that letter made her want to know 
the things other girls did, harder than she ever 
had before! 

She wanted to know Aunt Margaret! She 
had only seen her twice since she could remem¬ 
ber. Phyllis vaguely knew her grandfather 
had once quarreled with Uncle Rob, and after 
it was over—well, Mr. Lancy liked to be alone. 
But Phyllis had once spent a month in Park- 
view. She didn’t remember much about it, ex- 



18 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


cept that her cousin Jerry had been a most un¬ 
merciful tease, and that she liked Uncle Rob, 
but she had never forgotten Aunt Margaret! 
Aunt Margaret wasn’t the sort of person that 
you forgot! 

And she wanted to know Joyce! Joyce was 
her cousin, but somehow they didn’t write to 
each other very often. They didn’t seem to 
have anything to write about. But the picture 
Aunt Margaret had sent in this letter made 
Phyllis want to know her. She stood so 
straight in her knickers, her skis in one hand, 
and you could almost hear her laugh. She 
looked like a girl who would know—oh, the 
things a girl ought to! 

And she wanted—oh, she wanted to know 
Hillcrest, the place where her mother had gone 
to school with Aunt Margaret, and she wanted 
to go to school, too, and to learn to laugh and 
to play basket-ball and tennis, and be a girl , 
and not a “ Phyllis the Friendless! ” 

School was a magic word to Phyllis, a Land 
of Heart’s Desire, but it was also a land in 
which she wasn’t likely to travel very soon, for 
once when she had shyly mentioned school Mr. 



PHYLLIS THE EAVESDROPPER 19 


Lancy had shaken his head decidedly, and 
Mr. Lancy had a very discouraging shake of 
the head. 

“ No, Phyllis, I do not approve of modern 
schools. They may be all very well for some 
girls, but a Lancy, you know, is a different 
matter.” 

Yes, Phyllis knew the Lancys were a dif¬ 
ferent matter! She had spent hours in her 
grandfather’s study learning about them. A 
Lancy was expected to have Courage, Courage 
to do the Right. A Lancy must never forget 
that he was a Lancy. A Lancy must always 
be ready to uphold the Lancy Honor, and the 
Lancy Honor was a sacred thing. There was 
even a poem about it. Phyllis had been very 
little, and her grandfather’s study chairs very 
big, when she heard it for the first time. And 
her grandfather himself looked so tall and 
stately standing before her, it was no wonder 
she felt awed! And the poem itself had been 
almost like a bugle-call: 

“ Lancy hearts are always high; 

Lancy men would scorn to fly; 

Lancy men prefer to die! 


20 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Lancy men are strong and true; 

Lancy maids have courage, too; 

Lancy minds are fair to view! 

Lancy house a motto hast; 

Lancys down the years have passed: 

Lancy Honor Is Steadfast! ” 

“Lancy Honor Is Steadfast!—Is Stead¬ 
fast!” Oh, that was a wonderful Motto, 
Phyllis had thought, and the Lancys must be 
a wonderful family to have it! But as she 
grew older, Phyllis was almost tempted to 
turn her back on the Lancy Honor and some 
of the wonder of being a Lancy, if thereby she 
might exchange them for a few friends and 
the things other girls did! 

“ Shall we go to the Library this after¬ 
noon? ” asked Miss Patterson. “ There is a 
new book on Chinese Art that I want to see.” 

“ Yes,” said Phyllis. She liked the big, 
busy, quiet young people’s room at the 
Library, with its cosy alcoves, and she wasn’t 
overwhelmingly shy and painfully silent with 
the story girls who lived on the Library 
shelves! 



PHYLLIS THE EAVESDROPPER 21 


There were several interesting-looking books 
on the “ new book shelf.” Phyllis selected 
two or three and carried them over to her own 
pet alcove. She decided on one of them at 
once, because the heroine’s name was Mar¬ 
garet, and flipping through the pages she came 
upon “ Joyce! ” 

Phyllis looked wistfully at the poinsettia on 
the high window-ledge. Oh, if she could only 
know the real Margaret and Joyce! If she 
could only go to ITillcrest! 

There were voices just around the corner, 
low voices, of course, but Phyllis had good 
ears. 

“ Ready, Herbert? I have to get this 
Phyllis-book stamped, and then I’ll be with 
you.” 

V A Phyllis-book! Don’t ask me to have 
anything to do with it! ” 

Connie laughed softly. 

“ I saw you talking and dancing with 
Phyllis Lancy last night,” Phyllis recognized 
the third voice as Mary Hildreth’s, a Southern 
cousin of the Richardons. “ What is she like 
near by? ” 


22 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Phyllis caught her breath. She was sure 
that if she were in Herbert Richardon’s place 
she wouldn’t have anything good to say about 
Phyllis Lancy! He didn’t. It sounded very 
much as if he groaned. Phyllis didn’t blame 
him. 

“ When Connie asked me to go over and 
entertain her, I said she was an icicle. I 
wronged her. I wronged her deeply. She 
isn’t an icicle at all—she’s a nice, cool little 
iceberg! ” 

“You can’t blame her, though!” Connie 
protested. “ It isn’t her fault she lives all 
alone with just her grandfather and a govern¬ 
ess. I don’t believe she ever sees anybody 
her own age except at parties and dancing- 
class. I don’t wonder that she’s an icicle! 
She must be frightfully lonely! I’m dread¬ 
fully sorry for her! ” 

“ Well,” observed Phyllis’ late knight 
errant, “ Fm sorry for anybody who has to 
entertain her! ” 

It was lucky that Phyllis the eavesdropper 
was a Lancy, and that the Lancys have cour¬ 
age! She needed it as the three moved away 



PHYLLIS THE EAVESDROPPER 23 


and left her alone! She didn’t blame them for 
saying those things! She was an icicle—no, 
an iceberg! 

But even being a Lancy has its compensa¬ 
tions. The Lancy courage carried Phyllis 
over to the Librarian’s desk to have her book 
charged, and even helped her to return Miss 
Moore’s smile before she slipped out the door 
and down to the car to meet Miss Patterson. 

And it was the Lancy courage that helped 
her to keep her head up until she was in her 
own room behind a securely-locked door. 
Aunt Margaret’s letter lay in the window-seat. 
Phyllis had always liked that window-seat. If 
she looked down at the right time, she could see 
the girls going to and from the large school 
on the corner, their arms about each other, ex¬ 
changing comments on the doings of the day. 
And Aunt Margaret-letters were so delight¬ 
ful ! This one had made her feel a terrible out¬ 
sider, but she held it against her cheek. If 
Aunt Margaret had been there, she would 
have understood! But Aunt Margaret was in 
Parkview. 

Phyllis picked up the book she had chosen 



2 4 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


at the Library, but it proved to have little com¬ 
fort for a girl who was an iceberg, since its 
heroine gathered unto herself by magic means, 
or so it seemed to Phyllis, a host of adoring, 
admiring friends, won a swimming champion¬ 
ship, organized a tennis club, and took the 
leading part in a play at the last minute to 
save it from failure! 

As for Phyllis—she watched the girls on the 
avenue, and learned what was expected of a 
Lancy, and went to Madame Felori’s studio 
to sing, and when she went to parties she froze 
right up. Phyllis turned desperately towards 
the picture. 

“ Motherdy, I don’t want to be an iceberg! 
I don’t want to be, Motherdy! ” 

The other Phyllis smiled down in the gath¬ 
ering dusk. 



CHAPTER II 

PHYLLIS CHOOSES A STRANGE BIRTHDAY 

PRESENT 

It was late before Phyllis forgot she was 
an “ iceberg.” Consequently, although early 
rising .was another of the things expected of a 
Lancy—by Mr. Jeremiah Lancy, at least,— 
the winter sun was up long before Phyllis was 
wakened by a light sound at her door, 
is? Phyllis dear? ” 

Phyllis started up. “ Y-yes, Miss Patty? ” 
“ It is almost eight, Phyllis. Your grand¬ 
father wished me to tell you. He would like 
to see you before he goes to his office.” 

Phyllis slipped out of bed. Eight o’clock! 
And grandfather’s opinion of people who 
were not ready for their day’s work at six was 
a very poor one, she knew. “ To lie abed, after 
the sun has shown men it is time for work, is 
a sign of an indolent nature,” he had told her 
once. 

25 





26 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

44 Yes, Miss Patterson. Please tell Grand¬ 
father I will be down very soon.” 

She glanced at the portrait-Phyllis a little 
fearfully. Suppose she had missed seeing the 
sun on it? That was the time, in the early 
morning, when Phyllis confided things to the 
picture she never told any one else. But she 
hadn’t. The sun was just beginning to touch 
the other Phyllis’ chin, making the smile more 
alive than ever. 

“ Motherdy,” said Phyllis suddenly, “ do 
you know you’ve got an 4 iceberg ’ for a daugh¬ 
ter? ” 

The picture-Phyllis smiled serenely at her 
44 iceberg daughter,” and suddenly it seemed to 
Phyllis that she did know! It was foolish, of 
course, but Phyllis had the unreasonable feel¬ 
ing that somehow her picture-mother would 
understand, and she poured out the whole 
awful story from beginning to end. And, as 
she talked, the sun climbed higher and higher 
until it reached the girl’s eyes. She had very 
lovely eyes. They looked as if she under¬ 
stood just how you felt and what you wanted. 
Phyllis always felt comforted after she had 


A STRANGE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 27 

seen that flash of sunlight in them. She even 
sang a bar or two of the “ Hunting Song ” as 
she went down the stairs, despite the lateness 
of the hour. 

Mr. Lancy was drawing on his gloves. He 
lifted his eyebrows. Mr. Lancy had very 
alarming eyebrows, and still more alarming 
eyes. They seemed to be looking through you 
sometimes. 

“ So you chose to be a trifle late, this morn- 

mg? 

Phyllis crimsoned. “ I am sorry, Grand¬ 
father! ” 

“ But Miss Patterson said you seemed a 
little tired last night. I wanted to tell you I 
expect to bring Mr. James Bradford with me 
when I return this evening. He will take 
dinner with us.” 

“ Yes, Grandfather.” 

That was another thing expected of Phyllis: 
she had to be hostess, honorary hostess at least, 
to her grandfather’s guests. So, for the past 
year, when one or two of Mr. Lancy’s friends 
had dined at the Lancy house, Phyllis had 
been their hostess. She had been terribly 


28 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

bored sometimes, but Mr. Lancy had said she 
“ carried herself like a true Lancy.” Phyllis 
wondered if being a true Lancy ” meant be¬ 
ing dignifiedly-aloof and un-get-at-able. If 
it did, she didn’t consider it much of a compli¬ 
ment. 

Her history recitation that day was on the 
Tudor period. Phyllis thought they had been 
unnecessary prigs, and she felt especially im¬ 
patient with Queen Elizabeth, principally, 
perhaps, because when she asked a certain 
question about that lady’s reign, Miss Patter¬ 
son sent her down to the Lancy library to look 
up the answer in an old book for herself. 
Usually Phyllis loved the library, but to-day, 
as she stopped under the portrait of a certain 
proud old ancestress, she felt like shaking her 
fist at the Lady Philippa Lancy. Why were 
all the Lancys so terribly dignified and stately, 
anyway? Did icebergs run in the family? 

Phyllis asked no more questions that day, 
and she recited the rest of her lessons with 
unusual speed. She wanted to get away! 
Away from the Lancy house and the Lancy 
portraits, and even the Lancy honor! Phyllis 


A STRANGE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 29 


was glad it was Thursday, and that she went 
to Madame Felori’s studio for her singing- 
lesson on Thursdays. Madame Felori wouldn’t 
have cared if there hadn’t been a Lancy in the 
world, and while she was singing, or listening 
to Madame’s singing, Phyllis didn’t care very 
much herself. 

“ Will you mind being alone in the car after 
your lesson? ” Miss Patterson asked as they 
started. “ I asked your grandfather if I 
might visit my sister this afternoon, and he 
said I might. Will you mind, dear? ” 

“ No, indeed!” said Phyllis very honestly. 
She felt that she would enjoy being alone for 
once in her sheltered life! 

When she stepped from the car on her re¬ 
turn home, two children racing down the ave¬ 
nue bumped squarely into her. 

“ How do you do? ” said Phyllis gaily. 
“ Did you get your scooter for Christmas? ” 
The children nodded shyly, without speak¬ 
ing. 

44 Well, it certainly can scoot! ” 

She smiled at them, but as she went up the 
Lancy steps, Phyllis heard one asking the 


30 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


nurse as she came up, “ Peg-gy, who’s that 
nice girl-y? ” 

“ S-sh! ” Peggy seemed horrified to hear 
Phyllis called a “ nice girl-y.” “ She isn’t just 
a ‘ nice girlyPen! She’s Mr. Jeremiah 
Lancy’s granddaughter, and she lives in that 
nice big house with her grandpa.” 

Phyllis fled up the steps, her cheeks burn¬ 
ing, all the swift pleasure from her music and 
Madame’s words of praise gone. So she 
wasn’t even a “ nice girl-y ” ; she was only 
Mr. Jeremiah Lancy’s granddaughter! Why, 

’why did people always have to remember that? 

“ Why do they? ” she stormed to the picture 
in her room, “ why do they, Motherdy? I do 
love Grandfather, but oh, I would like to be 
myself, too! I’d like—yes I would!—I’d like 
to make people forget that I was a Lancy just 
for once! Do you really suppose I could if I 
became a singer? ” 

The other Phyllis looked as if she under¬ 
stood, and Phyllis suddenly remembered some¬ 
thing she had found in her mother’s diary, the 
diary that had been given to her on her thir¬ 
teenth birthday, and she giggled. 


A STRANGE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 31 


“ If Daddy Lancy would only forget that 
he is a Lancy, he’d be a dear! ” 

“ I guess that’s the matter with all of us,” 
sighed Phyllis. “ Oh, Motherdy, I wish I 
could forget! ” 

But when seven o’clock came, there was no 
sign of the storm; Phyllis, dressed in her fa¬ 
vorite rose, was standing on the stairs directly 
under the light, one hand resting on the great 
balustrade, when her grandfather and his guest 
entered. Mr. Bradford looked at her and told 
Mr. Lancy he was a very fortunate man. 

“ I have a daughter about your age myself,” 
he told Phyllis, “ but she is away at school most 
of the time. She came home at Christmas, 
though, and I am sorry Christmas doesn’t 
come twice a year! Where is your school, my 
dear? ” 

“ I—I don’t go—to school,” stammered 
Phyllis, suddenly shy. She liked Mr. Brad¬ 
ford; she liked him very much for some reason, 
and she had at least a dozen questions she 
wanted to ask him about the daughter he had 
been so glad to see, and what she did at her 
school. 



32 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Phyllis has a governess/’ explained Mr. 
Lancy. 

“S-so?” said Mr. Bradford, “that must 
make it very nice for you, my dear,” he smiled 
at Phyllis, and Phyllis found herself answer¬ 
ing it. She leaned forward. 

“ Please—does—does your daughter play 
basket-ball? ” 

“ Phyllis! ” expostulated her grandfather, 
but Mr. Bradford only laughed and smiled 
at her again. “ From what I have heard this 
past week, I think she tries,” he answered. “ I 
wish you could meet Carol, little Miss Phyllis.” 

Phyllis wished so, too, until she remembered 
that Carol would probably know she was an 
iceberg, and then she didn’t. It was better 
just to talk to her father, who didn’t know 
apparently. But somehow she liked Carol 
Bradford! She pictured her to herself, while 
her grandfather and Mr. Bradford talked. 
She would be a tall girl, with short, fair hair 
and eyes that laughed, and just lots and lots of 
friends. 

Phyllis was possessed of the spirit which is 
either soaring among the clouds or is down in 



A STRANGE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 33 

the canyon of despair, and just now she was 
climbing the Heights of Imagination. She 
curled herself up in one of the great library 
chairs when dinner was over, to watch the 
happy little flames go dancing up the chimney. 
An open fireplace when all the rest of the room 
is dark, as the Lancy library was now, is the 
best place in the world to see pictures-of- 
things-that-aren’t-there. Phyllis saw herself 
and Carol Bradford—just what they were do¬ 
ing together she didn’t know and didn’t care; 
she was too happy to bother about such an 
unimportant little detail! She snuggled 
deeper into the wing-chair with a contented 
little sigh. 

“ Phyllis.” It was her grandfather’s voice 
that broke the spell. 

“ Y-yes, Grandfather? ” Phyllis blinked 
under the sudden light. 

“ Mr. Bradford has come to say good-night 
to you.” 

“ I am sorry to have disturbed you, little 
Miss Phyllis,” Carol’s father said gently. 

Phyllis scrambled to her feet. “ I’m not 
sorry a bit, Mr. Bradford! ” she declared, her 



34 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


eyes shining. How could she be “ sorry ” 
about anything with Carol’s father? (Phyllis 
forgot in her excitement that she had never 
seen Carol, and probably never would see 
her!) 

Behind them, Mr. Lancy nodded his ap¬ 
proval, and, when Mr. Bradford had gone, 
he came back to the library. Phyllis smiled 
up at him from the depths of her wing-chair. 
It was nice to have such a splendid grand¬ 
father, even though he did draw his eyebrows 
together! 

“ Phyllis,” her grandfather said abruptly, 
“ you are going to have a birthday soon, are 
you not? ” 

“ Why—yes, sir,” said Phyllis in a surprised 
voice. She was, although she hadn’t remem¬ 
bered it until just now. What could Grand¬ 
father be talking about birthdays for? She 
hoped, oh, she hoped he wasn’t thinking of a 
birthday-dance! He was frowning, and that 
would be enough to make anybody frown! 

“You will be fourteen, will you not, 
Phyllis?” 

Yes, Grandfather.” 


<< 



A STRANGE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 35 

“Ah! Fourteen. Old enough to use dis¬ 
cretion in the matter of a gift, I think. Take 
Miss Patterson with you and select the thing 
you want most, from me.” 

“ Grandfather! ” Phyllis was leaning for¬ 
ward, all her eagerness in her voice. “ Grand¬ 
father! The thing I want most? " 

“ Certainly. Always using discretion, of 
course.” 

Phyllis threw discretion to the winds. She 
sprang to her feet, her eyes shining, her lips 
parted, two pink spots on her cheeks, her hair 
rumpled from the chair. There was no iceberg 
in sight now! 

“ Grandfather, I don’t need Miss Patterson 
to help me! Oh, Grandfather, the thing I 
want most is to go to Hillcrest School! ” 

Mr. Lancy fell back. If Phyllis had said 
she wanted to join an expedition to the North 
Pole, he couldn’t have been more astounded. 

“School?” It took a great deal to make 
Mr. Fancy gasp. 

“Y r es!” said Phyllis breathlessly. So 
breathlessly, in fact, that her words seemed to 
tumble over each other. “Yes! I want to 


36 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


go to Hillcrest and learn what other girls learn, 
and what they do, and then I want to do it, 
too—skate and ski, and play basket-ball! And 
I want them to be my friends! Oh, Grand¬ 
father, I don’t know how to be friends with 

/ 

anybody!” 

Poor Mr. Lancy looked as if he had been 
assailed by a hurricane. 

“ So,” he said at last, “ so—you—want—to 
—go—to—school. You want to leave your 
quiet, easy lessons with a patient, experienced 
teacher in your own home, and go to—school! ” 

Phyllis flushed under his gaze, but she did 
not flinch and look away as so many people 
did when Mr. Lancy looked at them, and she 
held fast to her purpose: “ Yes, Grandfather, 
I do.” 

Mr. Lancy shook his head, and for an awful 
moment Phyllis thought he was going to say 
“ No.” But what he finally did say was 
neither “ no ” nor “ yes,” and when he said it, 
there was a twinkle in his eyes. 

“ So you want to go to school as a birthday 
present, child? Well, you have a curious taste 
in presents, my dear, a curious taste, indeed, 










A STRANGE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 37 


but we shall see, Phyllis, we shall see! By 
September-” 

“ Oh, please! Grandfather! Do I have to 
wait for Sept ember? ” 

“ We’ll see, child, we’ll see.” 

“ Motherdy,” Phyllis whispered just before 
she put out her light, “ I truly believe Grand¬ 
father will let me go to school! And Hill- 
crest is such a dear place! Oh, do you sup¬ 
pose the round tower where you slept is still 
there, and the funny winding steps, and the 
brook—and do they still sing the Salute 
Song?” 

Phyllis had read her mother’s diary and 
studied the pictures of Hillcrest, and the four 
Hillcrest year-books her mother had received 
so much, she felt as if she belonged there! She 
knew you climbed over a little stone wall, went 
down through a sloping meadow and there, 
under a big willow-tree, was a brook, the 
loveliest place to study in the spring; but you 
could only go there if you had been very 
good! And she knew that Hillcrest girls al¬ 
ways climbed Beech Knoll for Easter-morning 


service. 





38 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


And Phyllis had loved the Salute Song from 
the first day she found it printed under Mary 
Kieth’s picture. Mary Kieth had won it the 
year Phyllis’ mother graduated. 

“ I—I hope—some girl will win it—while 
I’m there,” murmured Phyllis, as happy to¬ 
night as she had been miserable the night be¬ 
fore. 

On her birthday, a soft, snowy morning the 
first week in February, Phyllis found two 
letters beside her plate. One was to Mr. 
Lancy from Miss Elizabeth Anderson, Prin¬ 
cipal of Hillcrest School, notifying him that 
his granddaughter might enter the school after 
the Easter vacation, if she wished. The other 
letter was from Aunt Margaret: 

“ Dear Seven-times-Two to-day: 

“ Grandfather wrote us about the birth¬ 
day present he is going to give you to-day. I 
think it’s quite the nicest one you ever had— 
it is for us, at any rate, for it’s going to give us 
a new member for our family and let us really 
get acquainted with you. I’m excited. I 
haven’t told anybody, but I’m a little bit 
anxious for fear you won’t like me as well as 



A STRANGE BIRTHDAY PRESENT 39 


you did seven years ago! And Joy is crazy 
with joy—that wasn’t supposed to be a pun!— 
at the thought of having you all to herself for 
so long, and she says she’s going to fix the 
green room for you herself. I’m going to let 
her, because she can do it lots better than any 
of the rest of us could, and I want you to like 
it—and us. 

“ A very happy birthday, and may you 
never regret your present. 

“ Y r our loving 

“ Aunt Margaret.” 


CHAPTER III 


PHYLLIS LEARNS THE “ HORRIDEST WORD ” 

Close on the heels of Aunt Margaret’s 
birthday letter came another, from Joyce this 
time. Phyllis had only seen Joy once since 
her visit to Parkview, and that once she had 
been so busy trying to elude her cousin Jerry, 
who, by virtue of his twelve-year superiority 
in the matter of age, knew so many more ways 
how to tease than Phyllis did to escape, that 
she had almost overlooked Joyce. But 
Joyce’s letter was not to be overlooked! 

44 Phyllis Darling— 

44 ’Scuse my calling you that, ’cause you 
really don’t know me, but if you’re going to 
live with us and go to the Light on the Hill 
with little me, I think it’s time we were 
’quainted, don’t you? When Daddy got 
Grandfather’s letter about vou I’d almost for- 
gotten I had a Cousin Phyllis, but I know lots 
about you now, and I’m crazy to know more! 

40 


THE “HORRIDEST WORD” 


41 


It’s an awfully long way to the middle of 
April! But I’m fixing the green room for 
you myself, and I’d hate to have you come 
before it was done. It’s a love, that green 
room is! All the girls are crazy over it, and 
they’re just wild about you, you’re so like a 
person in a book! I must scurry to basket¬ 
ball practice now. Do you know basket-ball? 
I don’t suppose so. I’ll have to teach you lets 
of things. 

“ Bye! 

“ Joy.” 

So Joyce played basket-ball, too, and she 
was willing to teach her! Phyllis’ heart 
glowed over that last sentence. She had never 
known a girl outside a story with that accom¬ 
plishment, except Carol Bradford. Phyllis 
had dreamed about Carol so much it seemed 
as if she really did know her; and Joy 
—Joyce was certainly real, there could be 
no doubt about that! Phyllis sighed content¬ 
edly and settled herself to read her cousin’s 
letter for the fourth time before Miss Patter¬ 
son should call her to go out on a shopping 
trip. Joyce was right. It was an awfully 
long while to the middle of April, but Phyllis, 



42 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


like Joyce, had work to do. There were a 
good many of the shopping trips, and Phyllis 
loved the different little shops and great stores, 
and found the plain skirts and simple middies 
and school dresses far more exciting than she 
had ever thought the pretty afternoon dresses 
and dainty party frocks she had frequently 
helped Miss Patterson select; and Miss Patter¬ 
son, as erect and correct as ever, despite the 
strange twist her work had taken, wondered 
why a girl should look prettier in simple school 
dresses than she had looked in her chic Phyllis- 
Lancy clothes. Phyllis could have told her. 
Phyllis had always wanted the plain school 
things just as badly as other girls wanted their 
party dresses. Was it any wonder her cheeks 
were as rose as the little afternoon dress Miss 
Patterson had just chosen, or that Madame 
Felori had told Miss Patterson her voice was 
growing clearer and sweeter? Phyllis was 
happy! 

“ Hillcrest is really a very good school,” her 
grandfather told her one evening in the library, 
“ and I am glad you are going to your uncle’s. 
Do you remember Robert, Phyllis? ” 


THE “ HORRIDEST WORD ” 43 

Phyllis, on the little stool before the fire, her 
hands clasped about her knees, shook her head. 
“ N-no, not very much.” 

“ It isn’t surprising, you have only seen him 
once or twice. Parkview Manor is only a 
day’s journey from here, but I am afraid I 
am stubborn sometimes, and it seemed as 
though he was just as stubborn for a good 
many years, and as if we couldn’t forgive each 
other, and now—well, I like to be alone. But 
I am glad you are going there, child. Your 
Aunt Margaret has wanted you before this, 
and Miss Patterson told me you should know 
other young people, and a year or two in the 
country will do you good.” 

“ Grandfather-” 

“ Yes, child? ” 

“ Grandfather, out there—in Parkview— 
may I do what the other girls do—tennis and 
basket-ball, and swimming—and things like 
that? ” 

Mr. Lancy tilted her chin upwards to look 
into the clear grey eyes. Then he chuckled. 

“ ‘ When in Rome, do as the Romans do,’ ” 
he quoted, “ but I trust you, Phyllis, never to 




THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


44 

forget our motto, in a game or in anything 
else.” 

“ Yes, Grandfather.” 

“Yes, Phyllis.” ITe kissed her gravely. 
“ And a Lancy doesn’t break a promise.” 

April did come finally, although it seemed to 
Phyllis who had counted the last two weeks 
off the calendar, day by day, that it was the 
slowest March she had ever seen. But the 
middle of April did come at last, and Phyllis, 
sitting amid a gay-colored pile of unpacked 
things, watching Miss Patterson and one of 
the maids deftly packing her belongings into 
her shining new trunk, suddenly realized she 
was going away! Away from her grand¬ 
father whom she had always known, away 
from kind Miss Patterson and even Jane 
Mary, the maid! And, suddenly, Phyllis felt 
very, very small. School—yes, she had wanted 
to go—she did want to go! She was sure of 
that, but she didn’t know school, and she did 
know her grandfather, and she really loved him 
very dearly, and she was fond of Miss Patter¬ 
son; and the Lancy house, stately and awe¬ 
inspiring as it was, had been Home! Phyllis 




THE “ HORRIDEST WORD ” 


45 


looked about her a little wildly, and then she 
saw the portrait-Phyllis. The picture had not 
been taken down as yet; it would follow Phyllis 
later; so there, where Phyllis had always seen 
her, the picture-girl smiled down at her daugh¬ 
ter. Phyllis swallowed a great lump. 

“You went to Hillcrest, too, didn’t you? ” 
she whispered. “ I’m glad I saw you, 
Motherdy! I won’t back down now! ” 

And she didn’t; not even after she had 
donned the rose dress. She had begged Miss 
Patterson to leave that to be worn to-night. 
It was going to be a hard night, and Phyllis 
thought it would be easier to be brave in rose. 
Then she clasped her grandfather’s birthday- 
pearls around her neck and went slowly down 
the wide stairs to the library. Once there, 
she stood very still. It was such a nice library, 
with its great fireplace and many books; its 
cosy window-seats and comfortable chairs and 
lovely pictures; and to-morrow night she 
wouldn’t be there! Phyllis caught her breath, 
and then, to show that she was a Lancy and 
“ Lancy hearts are always high,” she laughed, 
and saluted her grandfather with a slow 


46 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


curtsey, worthy of the Lady Philippa her¬ 
self. 

“You are very like your grandmother now, 
Phyllis,” Mr. Lancy said. 

Phyllis laughed. To be compared with 
lovely Grandmother Lancy was a compliment 
indeed. 

“Am I? I’ll try to be! Listen, Grand¬ 
father !, 

“ I, a picture fair could paint you, 

With a little maid acquaint you, 

How she danced and how she dimpled, 

Long ago—Long ago. 

Laughing eyes and flossy curls, 

Daintiest of dainty girls, 

Little mouth demure and sweet; 

How she brought them to her feet, 

Long ago—Long ago! ” 

* 

Phyllis, “ as she brought them to her feet ” 
did “ paint a picture fair ” in the quiet, shaded 
light of the old library. 

“ I could paint her more completely 
As she tripped the measure fleetly, 

To the harpischord’s sweet tinkling, 

Long ago—Long ago. 




THE “ HORRIDEST WORD ” 


47 


Now retreating, now advance, 

Grandma knew no modern dance, 

But a stately measure slow, 

Trod beneath the mistletoe, 

Long ago—Long a—go.” 

Phyllis was singing very softly, in the high, 
sweet voice her grandfather loved, and per¬ 
haps it was no wonder Mr. Lancy sighed even 
as he smiled at her, and held her very tightly 
when she came over to him. But, though Mr. 
Lancy was not hungry that night and Phyllis 
was troubled with the lump again, she liked to 
remember that her last evening at home, before 
she went out to enter the Land of Heart’s 
Desire, had been full of smiles, and that neither 
she nor her grandfather nor Miss Patterson 
mentioned the change coming to her. 

She woke early the next morning. She 
wanted to see the sunshine across her mother’s 
eyes in the old place just once more, and as 
she lay watching, she whispered again: 

“ I’m going to school —your school, 
Motherdy! ” 

And after the sunbeams had reached the 
whimsical blue eyes that looked down at her, 


48 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Phyllis rose to greet the day and whatever it 
might have in store for her. 

Jerry, she knew, was to meet them at the 
station. “ I had intended taking you to Park- 
view myself,” Mr. Lancy had informed her, 
“ but there is an important conference I 
mustn’t miss, and Jerry wrote me he was to 
be in the city to-day, and would be glad to 
have your company home. It is very kind in 
your Uncle Robert to ask you to live with 
them. You must try not to make any more 
trouble for them than you can possibly help.” 

After all, it wasn’t as bad as Phyllis had 
thought it would be. The ride to the station 
was a swift one, and Jerry did not make them 
wait long, once they reached there. Perhaps 
he knew his grandfather’s love of punctuality. 
He had the Lancy tallness, and direct gaze, 
but, though Phyllis suspected they could be 
keen enough if they had to be, his bilie eyes 
had twinkles in them, and you would almost 
have said there were twinkles in his voice, as 
well. Phyllis never made friends easily, but 
she came nearer to liking this tall cousin at sec¬ 
ond sight than she ever had anybody else. 


THE “ HORRIDEST WORD ” 


49 


“ This is your cousin Jeremiah, Phyllis,” 
said Mr. Lancy. “ It is extremely good in you 
to take Phyllis, Jeremiah.” 

“ Terribly good! ” agreed Jerry Lancy, and 
Phyllis suddenly made an odd little sound. 
The twinkling eyes were bent on her, but 
Phyllis, at that moment, was very much inter¬ 
ested in the design on the floor. 

Mr. Lancy took out his watch. “ Your train 
leaves in ten minutes. Perhaps you would like 
to get settled now.” 

Once on the train, Phyllis lifted her arms. 
“ G-good-bye, Grandfather! Oh, Grand¬ 
father! Isn’t ‘good-bye’ the horridest word 
you know? ” 

“There, there, child!” remonstrated Mr. 
Lancy hastily, “remember where you are!” 
Phyllis let her arms drop. Too late she re¬ 
membered her fastidious grandfather’s dislike 
of “ public demonstrations! ” 

“ I—I forgot,” she said penitently. “ Oh, 
Grandfather! ” 

For as the train gave a warning little move¬ 
ment, Mr. Lancy bent and kissed her. 

“There, there, child! Enjoy your school, 



50 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


and remember I’m trusting you to never for¬ 
get that Lancy Honor Is Steadfast! ” 

It seemed very easy to promise: “ I won’t, 
Grandfather,” then; much easier than facing 
that promise was, months later. But Phyllis 
was—well, she was Phyllis Lancy, and she 
wasn’t the forgetting kind! 



CHAPTER IV 


PHYLLIS BEGINS HER EDUCATION 

Phyllis counted telegraph-poles for some 
miles. She had a horrible feeling that if she 
didn’t do something monotonous she would 
cry, and she had no desire to introduce herself 
to Dr. Jerry Lancy with tears! So she counted 
the telegraph-poles. 

But a girl who is on her way to the Land of 
Heart’s Desire cannot have a heartache very 
long, fortunately, and Phyllis, having con¬ 
quered the lump in her throat which had been 
disturbing her peace of mind for several 
days, wanted to know more about the land 
she was going to. Jerry could tell her, of 
course. Phyllis wished she were like most girls, 
with the words always ready at her tongue’s 
end, but she wasn’t; so she sat and watched the 
fluffy little clouds which seemed to be racing 
with the train go sailing over the bluest of 
April skies. It had been an early spring, and 

51 


52 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


already a few of the leaves were out. The 
train sped along beside a river that danced 
when the sun struck it. 

“ Isn’t—isn’t it a nice day? ” asked Phyllis 
finally. It did sound flat, but she couldn’t 
think of another thing to say! 

“ Isn’t it? ” agreed her cousin. Phyllis saw 
the twinkles in his eyes, and suddenly she felt 
the same impulse to giggle that she had had in 
the station. 

“ But April is a pretty nice month,” said 
Jerry. “ I’m glad you are coming to Park- 
view now, Phyl, and not waiting until Sep¬ 
tember. The trees are beginning to show that 
they are alive, even though you hadn’t believed 
it before, and the crocuses and daffodils are in 
bloom, and the fleurs-de-lis are getting out of 
bed about now, and Joy talks more than ever 
—you mustn’t mind Joy, I never do—except 
when she’s in school. I understand she’s quite 
dumb there; and unless I’m very much mis¬ 
taken, there are some robins that have decided 
to rent my pet apple-tree for the season, and 
I don’t know a prettier place than Hillcrest 
Avenue is when it’s covered with maple-blos- 



PHYLLIS BEGINS HER EDUCATION 53 


soms. And you’ll like Hillcrest, Phyl. It 
looks more like a castle than an ugly old school 
with the ivy coming out over it, and Miss An¬ 
derson stands straighter and looks more like an 
exiled duchess than ever, if such a thing is 
possible! ” 

Phyllis sat very still. She had seen the 
spring, of course, and the country, but never 
anything like Jerry’s description of Parkview! 
And she liked what he said about the school— 
her school! Yes, it was her school, or it would 
be very soon, and why wait for that “ very 
soon ”? Why not say “ hers ” now? Phyllis 
forgot all about Jerry Lancy at her side and 
began to build dream castles. 

The sun was just beginning to drop behind 
the hills when Phyllis was roused from her 
dreams by the conductor’s cry of “ Parkview— 
Manor! Parkview—Manor—next! ” 

Parkview! Parkview, where she was going 
to know Aunt Margaret, and go to school and 
do all the things other girls did! Parkview, 
where she wouldn’t have to be “ Phyllis the 
Friendless ” any longer. 

Was it any wonder that her knees felt weak 


54 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


and her head spun round as she stumbled out 
of her seat? 

It spun still more a moment later, how¬ 
ever, for it seemed to her that she had hardly 
stepped down uj)on the platform before she 
was seized by somebody and hugged ecstati¬ 
cally. 

“ Oh! Oh! Oh! ” cried a voice in her ear, 
“you lovely, lovely thing! You look good 
enough to eat—almost! I’m Joy,” she finished 
a trifle breathlessly, stepping back to view her 
newly-arrived cousin. 

Phyllis, totally unaccustomed to such a rap¬ 
turous greeting, drew back, looking, as she felt, 
a little startled. Joyce, however, surveyed her 
with interest. She was a very pretty, light¬ 
haired, vivacious girl, was Joy, with freckles 
across her tilted nose. 

“Jerry!” she exclaimed excitedly, “Jerry, 
are you sure this gorgeous girl is really our 
cousin? Are you? ” 

“ I am,” responded her brother. “ I’m so 
sure of it I’m going to see to her baggage, and 
if you think you can take her to the car with¬ 
out making her think you’re a talking machine, 


PHYLLIS BEGINS HER EDUCATION 55 


and we’ve just wound you up, I think you’d 
better do it.” 

Joyce obediently piloted her cousin across 
the platform, chattering all the way: 

“ You dear thing! It was lovely of you to 
choose the Light on the Hill! We have more 
fun! And do you really mean to say you’ve 
never been to school at all? Oh, you lucky 
thing! ” 

Phyllis hadn’t meant to say anything at all. 
She couldn’t have, if she had wanted to. Joyce 
had taken away all her breath! 

“ Here’s Daddy! Here she is, Daddy! This 
beautiful creature really is Phyllis Lancy! I 
couldn’t believe it at first, but she came with 
Jerry, so she must be.” 

Mr. Lancy opened the car door and then 
took the hand Phyllis shyly offered him. He 
had the twinkling eyes, too, she noticed. 

“ We are very glad to have you, Phyllis. I 
am your Uncle Rob. Joyce, my dear, take 
care of that tongue of yours. It might run 
away with you sometime.” 

Joyce squeezed her cousin’s arm. “ They’re 
always teasing me about talking too much!” 


56 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


she complained. “ Do you think I talk such a 
lot? ” 

“ Why—I—I-” began Phyllis and then 

stopped. Uncle Rob came to her rescue. 

“ You haven’t given her a chance to think 
yet, Joy. Plow is your grandfather, Phyllis? 
It is very good in him to let us have you at last. 
I hope you’ll like the Lancys of Parkview.” 

He smiled at her, and Phyllis found herself 
smiling back. She liked Uncle Rob, just as 
she had liked Jerry. 

Joyce was bouncing up and down with im¬ 
patience. “ Oh, why doesn’t Jerry hurry? ” 

' she demanded. “ I want to get home and show 
Phyl to Muddy! Oh, here he is! Now! ” 

Phyllis sat very quiet on the ride to the 
Lancy home, which gave Joyce an opportunity 
to talk. Joyce seemed fond of talking, but her 
conversation was a bit puzzling at times. For 
instance, what did “ spiffily-doodle ” mean? 
Phyllis decided it must be part of the slang 
both her grandfather and Miss Patterson had 
condemned. Miss Patterson had said no lady 
would ever use it, and Mr. Lancy had added 
that “ it had no place in the verbiage of a 



PHYLLIS BEGINS HER EDUCATION 57 


Lancy.” But Joyce certainly was a Lancy, 
and could Phyllis say her cousin was not a 
lady? By the time they had reached their des¬ 
tination, Phyllis found herself sorely per¬ 
plexed by several things. 

“ Here we are! ” Joyce interrupted herself 
to cry. “ Do you like it? ” 

Phyllis did like it. Seen through the slowly 
gathering dusk, the house, separated from the 
street by a wide lawn, looked like a home, with 
its welcoming light coming through the open 
door, and there were inviting-looking trees 
clustered about. Phyllis loved trees. But 
Joyce gave her scant time for reflection. 

“ Come on! ” she said, and dragged her be¬ 
wildered cousin up the brick-paved walk. 
“ There’s Mother! Muddy, here she is! ” 

It almost seemed as if there were a halo 
around Aunt Margaret’s hair as she stood 
against the light. She held out both hands, 
and suddenly Phyllis knew she had come 
home. She hadn’t been imagining Aunt Mar¬ 
garet all these years. The only thing she 
hadn’t imagined was that she was half so 
lovely. 


58 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Welcome home, Phyllis Lancy,” Aunt 
Margaret was saying very softly, “ welcome 
home, little Seven-times-Two. I hope I can 
make the other Phyllis’ daughter very, very 
happy, now I have her at last! ” 

Phyllis had a sudden conviction she would 
be very happy anywhere, if only Aunt Mar¬ 
garet happened to be there! 

“ Oh! ” she cried. “ I—love you! ” 

Aunt Margaret held her fast a minute. 
“ Your mother used to tell me that, Phyllis.” 

“Come up here!” Joyce called over the 
banister. “ I want Phyl to see her room! ” 
Aunt Margaret released Phyllis with a little 
smile. “ Come, dear, Joy’s getting impatient. 
She has arranged your room herself, you 
know.” 

Joyce danced on ahead of them. Phyllis 
followed her a little slowly. “Silly!” she 
scolded herself. “ What are you afraid of? 
She’s your very own cousin, isn’t she? And 
besides, she’s going to be your first friend.” 

And then Aunt Margaret said “ In here, 
dear,” and she crossed the threshold of the 
green room and gave a little cry of delight. It 


PHYLLIS BEGINS HER EDUCATION 59 


wasn’t a large room, but, thanks to Joyce’s 
skilful management, it looked so, and to Phyl¬ 
lis, who had always loved green, the green 
hangings and rugs, with the touch of her fa¬ 
vorite rose in the rose cushion in the cosy chair, 
made it very lovely under the light from the 
rose-shaded lamp Joyce had snapped on. 

“ O-oh! ” said Phyllis softly. 

“ Do you like it? ” begged Joyce, seizing her 
cousin around the waist, “ oh, do please say 
you do, and relieve my suspense! ” 

“ Of course I do! It was awfully nice of 
you to arrange it for me,—Joyce.” Phyllis 
hesitated over the unaccustomed name. 

“ Yes,” agreed Joyce, looking complacently 
around her, “ yes, I think it was, myself.” 

“ Trust Joy to compliment herself,” ob¬ 
served Jerry, bringing up part of Phyllis’ bag¬ 
gage. “ But then, I suppose we shouldn’t 
deny her the pleasure of hearing some one do 
it.” 

“ Jerry Lancy! ” Joyce’s tone was full of 
indignation. 

“ I love green,” said Phyllis softly, “ how 
did you know? ” 


60 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“I?” Joyce shrugged her shoulders. “ I 
didn’t. I just fixed things the way I liked 
’em, and when it was finished I almost took it 
for myself. The girls were all crazy about it. 
They’re crazy about you, too. They wanted 
to he in here, waiting for you, but Muddy said 
we’d better not. You wouldn’t have minded, 
would you? ” 

“ I—don’t—know,” said Phyllis faintly. 

Joyce shot her an odd look. “ You don’t 
know! Well, they aren’t here. Probably 
couldn’t have gotten Lady Elizabeth’s permis¬ 
sion, anyway. You can meet them later. Do 
you know if you want to do that? ” 

“ Oh, yes!” 

“Well, maybe to-night, Baby-” 

“ Not to-night, Joy,” interposed Aunt Mar¬ 
garet, slipping an arm about her impetuous 
daughter. “ Phyllis is tired now. You and 
the girls must wait.” 

“ Oh, well-” Joyce surrendered for the 

time being. “ Take off your things, Phyl; I 
want to see what you look like without ’em.” 

Phyllis, inwardly grateful for Aunt Mar¬ 
garet’s reprieve, obeyed. She was tired, al- 





PHYLLIS BEGINS HER EDUCATION 61 


though she had been too excited to realize it 
before, and the prospect of meeting more girls 
like Joyce was a little too much. She wanted 
to meet them—of course she did, but she would 
rather do it as Aunt Margaret suggested, later, 
when she was less homesick, and had had a 
chance to forget just how horrid a word 
“ Good-bye ” can be. 

Joyce, looking critically at her simply- 
dressed cousin, with her oval face framed with 
dark, waving hair, two bright spots of excite¬ 
ment in her cheeks, and her head flung a little 
back to meet Joyce’s scrutiny bravely, admit¬ 
ted that, in looks at least, she was all that could 
be desired. She wondered what the other girls 
would say when they saw the real Phyllis 
Lancy. She had been their favorite topic of 
conversation ever since the day, last Decem¬ 
ber, when Joyce had signaled to Francie 
Lang that she had something important to 
tell her, and later, in the gym, had told them 
about her cousin who sounded so much like a 
story-girl. They had all speculated wildly as 
to what she would be like. Francie’s theory 
that she would be a mouse, seemed nearest 


62 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


right, but she didn’t look like the prig of 
Baby’s ideas nor the city Princess of Dara’s 
imagination. 

“ Well, you look all right,” Joyce was 
forced to admit. 

Phyllis flushed under the compliment, if it 
were a compliment. She didn’t quite know 
how to take Joyce’s remarks, and she was glad 
when the evening was over and Aunt Mar¬ 
garet took her away from the rest, shutting 
the door of the green room gently, but firmly, 
upon even the inquisitive Joyce. 

“ But there are dozens of things I want to 
know! ” 

“ You’ll have a whole year to get acquainted 
with Phyllis,” she answered her daughter’s 
protests; “ can’t you let me have her to-night? ” 

“ You are my daughter now,” she was say¬ 
ing gently, “ just as much as Joy is. I’ve al¬ 
ways wanted you, Phyllis, and now I’ve got 
you, you aren’t going to escape from my 
clutches very easily! I’m going to kiss you 
every single night you’re here! I hope you 
won’t object?” 

Phyllis, lying there in the cool little bed, 


PHYLLIS BEGINS HER EDUCATION 63 

thinking Aunt Margaret was the loveliest per¬ 
son she had ever seen, didn’t object in the 
least. 

Aunt Margaret bent and kissed her. 

“ And I’m going to say a verse I used to 
say to Joy when she was little. Y r ou weren’t 
here to hear it when you were little, so you’ve 
got to hear it now! 

“ Good-night, 

Sleep tight, 

Dream bright! ” 


CHAPTER V 






JOYCE INTRODUCES “ JEREMIAH^ PRIDE ” 

“Hello! Down so soon? I’ve just been 
telephoning Baby Harrison about you. What 
are you looking at—the garden? ” 

“Yes,” said Phyllis softly, “it’s lovely! 
Whose is it? ” 

“ Oh, it’s Jerry’s,” Joyce joined her cousin 
at the wide window, “ it is pretty, isn’t it? But 
then, it ought to be, the way Jerry fusses over 
it! I should think he’d be glad to rest when 
he’s got his office hours over, but the first thing 
he always does is to trot and see if his precious 
garden is still there. Daddy calls it ‘ Jere¬ 
miah’s Pride,’ and I honestly believe Jerry is 
prouder of that garden than he is of all the 
medals and things he won at college! Say, do 
you suppose it would make Muddy’s muffins 
get done quicker if we went over to introduce 
you to the garden? Wait till I get my sweater. 
Where’s yours?—Oh, I suppose it isn’t un- 

64 


“ JEREMIAH’S PRIDE” 


65 


packed yet. Here, take mine! I’ll wear 
Jerry’s.” 

Phyllis suddenly found herself being bun¬ 
dled into Joyce’s gay Angora-wool sweater, 
dragged out of the house, and swiftly 
across the lawn. She gasped. The sudden¬ 
ness of Joyce’s movements was apt to be 
rather disconcerting. But she forgave her 
cousin for it when she stood on the fleur-de- 
lis-bordered path of “Jeremiah’s Pride” and 
looked about her. She drew a quick breath of 
delight. No wonder Uncle Rob called it “Jer¬ 
emiah’s Pride!” No wonder her cousin was 
proud of it! It was more than beautiful! It 
was alive! 

“ Jeremiah’s Pride ” had been growing for 
several years. Phyllis learned afterward that 
Jerry had had it since he was a boy, and it 
grew lovelier every year. 

Joyce watched in silence for a few moments, 
and silence was the greatest tribute Joyce had 
to pay. 

“ Of course it isn’t as scrumptity-looking as 
it is in summer,” she explained. “ Jerry has 
oodles of roses and lilies and peonies and glad- 


66 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


iolas and hollyhocks and things then. I don’t 
see why he wants to fuss with them all, but he 
calls it his 4 rest cure.’ And he is fussy! Last 
year he told us about two tulip plants he 
wanted to save. They were awfully pretty, 
shell-pink things. But there were two plants, 
and I didn’t suppose one tulip less would be 
anything, so I picked one. But Jerry! Why, 
Jerry acted grieved! So in June when he had a 
special rose—there was only one of that kind— 
you can make up your mind I made a nice wide 

circle around it, but Jerry- Kits Saunders 

came over one night, and she wouldn't go 
home! It was her bedtime, and the little imp 
had run away. There she was, and there she 
wanted to stay. And then Jerry came along 
from a call. 4 Oh, wait a minute, Kits,’ he 
says, 4 don’t go yet! ’ which I thought was the 
craziest thing I’d ever heard, for Kits hadn’t 
the slightest idea of going! 4 There’s some¬ 
thing I want to show you first. It’s out in the 
garden,’ so Kits trots after Jerry, and Jerry 
tells her to choose the rose she’d like to take 
home with her, and, of course, she chose Jerry’s 
prize rose. He might have known she would! 




“ JEREMIAH’S PRIDE” 


67 


Now wouldn’t you have thought he’d have told 
her she couldn’t have it? But no! Jerry says 
‘ That one, Kits? All right. Now take it 
home to your mother before it wilts! ’ I told 
him he was awfully silly, but all he said was 
that Kits deserved it for showing such good 
taste! ” 

Phyllis laughed. She couldn’t help it, 
Joyce was so plainly disgusted with her 
brother’s short-sightedness! 

Joyce bent to snap a daffodil. “ Jerry calls 
these ‘ Spring Tonic,’ ” she observed. “ I think 
it’s a perfectly horrid name, but what can you 
expect from a person who calls a garden a 
‘ rest cure ’? I don’t see much rest about it 
myself, but it is a pretty fair garden, isn’t it? ” 

Phyllis looked about her. “Jeremiah’s 
Pride ” was a long garden. Back of her were 
little rose-bushes just beginning, as Jerry had 
said about the trees, to show they were alive, 
and behind them, as if each rose had a guard¬ 
ian, stood a slender dwarf pear-tree in blos¬ 
som. Before her, lay the great spreading daf¬ 
fodil bed, each separate flower swaying on its 
graceful stem, yet looking, as the soft breeze 


68 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


moved over them, as if they all moved to¬ 
gether. At her left were the narrow pointed 
leaves of the fleurs-de-lis, with here and there 
the tiniest of buds. Crocuses peeked up at 
her, and there was one flaming tulip open. 
The only thing she didn’t see was the owner 
of the garden, standing very still over by the 
cluster of evergreens. If she had seen him, 
she probably never would have said the thing 
she did. But she didn’t see him, so Phyllis, 
who loved flowers with veiy nearly the same 
love Jerry did, forgot her shyness for a minute 
when Joyce asked complacently, “ It is pretty 
fair, isn’t it?” and answered quickly: “ It is 
very fair! ” 

“ Bravo! ” said Jerry Lancy’s voice behind 
them. Phyllis whirled about, and Joyce gave 
a surprised little squeal. 

“ You are so quiet when you come, Jerry! ” 
she complained. 

Her brother grinned. “Was I? I’m sur¬ 
prised you didn’t hear me come, Joy. I was 
here first, you see.” 

April can be a very lovely month when she 
chooses, and she had the good grace to send a 


“JEREMIAH’S PRIDE” 


69 


lucky omen day for Phyllis’ first day of 
school. Phyllis, leaning from her window to 
look at the garden, was glad the sun shone and 
the daffodils nodded so cheerfully. Surely 
they wouldn’t be dancing so gayly if things 
were going to go so very wrong at Plillcrest! 
It was hard to remember the daffodils were 
only daffodils. It seemed as if they must be a 
troop of golden sun-fairies, they looked so alive! 
Everything in “Jeremiah’s Pride” always 
did look that way, for some reason! 

A robin hopped to the branch of the cherry- 
tree opposite Phyllis’ window, looked scorn¬ 
fully at the kitten below, and then up at Phyl¬ 
lis. “Cheer—up!” said the robin, “ ch-eer 
up! ch-eer up! ” 

Phyllis laughed and waved her hand at him 
as she turned towards the stairs in answer to 
Joyce’s impatient call. 

Joyce had no idea that this was the most 
important day in her cousin’s life. She 
simply couldn’t imagine a girl who had never 
been to school before, so she couldn’t imagine 
the sensations of a girl who was going to enter 
the land of school for the first time that Mon- 



70 


THE “ ICICLE 55 MELTS 


day, although, having put her through some¬ 
thing strongly resembling a verbal Spanish 
Inquisition, during the past two days, she 
knew a great deal more about her cousin than 
Phyllis wished she did! 

“ Wait until you see the Lady Elizabeth, 
Phyl!” she chattered over her cereal, “you’ll 
just love her! We all do! I think she has an 
iron ramrod for a spine! And her voice! It’s 
the loveliest thing. Makes me feel as if I had 
cold water running down my back! ‘ Now, my 
dear Joyce,’ and I wither right up! ” 

“ Have you ever thought of inviting Miss 
Anderson out here for dinner, Mumsie? ” in¬ 
quired Jerry thoughtfully. 

Phyllis laid down her spoon. She was not 
hungry somehow, although her cousin’s de¬ 
scription of the Principal had little to do with 
it. But her throat felt uncomfortably tight! 
She wanted to go to school—she knew she did! 
Then why, when she was going, were her knees 
so shaky and her hands so cold? Was it home¬ 
sickness? Was it because she was going to 
meet the “ girls.” She hadn’t met them. 
“ Why don’t you wait until you take Phyllis to 


“ JEREMIAH’S PRIDE ” 


71 


school to have her meet the girls? ” Aunt Mar¬ 
garet suggested. “ It’s only two days, you 
know, and I think perhaps she’d like to wander 
around and get acquainted with Parkview.” 

“ The peonies look very well this year,” ob¬ 
served Mr. Lancy suddenly. 

“ Yes, they do,” agreed Jerry heartily. “ I 
was looking at them this morning. They came 
through the winter beautifully.” 

Which, considering it had been an ex¬ 
tremely mild winter, was very kind of the 
peonies! 

“ You will like Mrs. Hilton, dear,” Aunt 
Margaret said softly. “ Everybody does. 
She teaches singing.” 

Phyllis smiled at her valiantly. “ I’m going 
to like it all ” she said, “ I know I am! ” 

But for a girl who was so sure she was going 
to like the land of her heart’s desire, Phyllis 
stayed a long time in the green room, and when 
finally the little clock on her desk warned her 
she must go, it took every ounce of Lancy 
courage to go down-stairs with a lifted head. 


CHAPTER VI 


PHYLLIS ENTERS THE LAND OF HEARTHS DESIRE 

Jerry was standing in the door of his office 
watching for her. “ Phyl, I’d like to give you 
a little talisman for to-day. The French used 
to think it was rather a fortunate flower. Will 
you take it? ” 

He held “ it ” out, a purple fleur-de-lis. 

“ Oh—Jerry!” 

“ Do you see the color? ” 

Phyllis nodded. 

“ Purple for victory, you know. I think it 
means good luck, Phyl.” 

“ Oh— Jerry! ” 

And Joyce coming into the hall saw her 
cousin smiling, although she was holding the 
purple fleur-de-lis a trifle more tightly than 
was good for its beauty. 

Near the top of the hill, they were wildly sa¬ 
luted by a tall girl with a striking head of 

72 



THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE 73 

bobbed hair and a pair of very mischievous 
grey-green eyes. 

“ Hello, Baby!” 

“ Hello, Joy,” the girl glanced curiously at 
Phyllis. 

“ Oh yes,” said Joyce easily. “ This is my 
cousin. Baby; Phyllis Lancy. She’s the most 
gorgeous of us all. Phyl, this is our class 
dunce, Baby Harrison. Lady Elizabeth calls 
her ‘ Babina,’ but nobody else does, so you 
needn’t, unless you want to follow Lady Eliz¬ 
abeth’s example.” 

Baby laughed. “Don’t!” she advised the 
embarrassed Phyllis. 

“ Well,” pondered Joyce, “ I wouldn’t sug¬ 
gest it. You’re too much like her already. 
You’re almost as dignified as she is, and when 
you smile —*—” 

“Oh, Joy! No!” protested the horrified 
Baby, “ she can't be like Lady Elizabeth then! 
Nobody could! Lady Elizabeth’s smile is 
three-edged, at least! ” 

“ Um,” said Joyce. “ Oh, you’ll just love 
our Lady Elizabeth, Phyl! ” 

Baby laughed. “ What are you trying to 



74 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


do, Joy? Scare your poor little cousin out of 
her wits on her very first day? ” 

“No,” said Joyce coolly, “ I have been tell¬ 
ing her what a nice, lovable old dear Lady 
Elizabeth is, and a few little things like that, 
but I haven’t been scaring her. You can’t 
scare a Lancy, Baby; they’re unscarable! ” 

Oh! Were they? Phyllis set her teeth. Did 
Joy always talk like that; on and on and 
on? 

And then, all at once, they were at the en¬ 
trance to the school. Joyce stopped dramat¬ 
ically. 

“ Behold it! ” she said. “ My dearest cousin, 
behold Parkview’s seat of learning for its 
girls! Gaze upon its graceful lines, upon the 
ancient ivy entwining itself about its walls as 
the walls themselves entwine about our hearts! 
Gaze with awe, I beg of you, upon the Seat of 
Wisdom from whence famous women have 
graduated! ” 

“Oh, be still, Joy!” interrupted Baby, 
“ that’s something you’ll never do, if you don’t 
enter that Seat of Wisdom yourself. And if 
you don’t hurry, we’ll be late. I don’t sup- 


THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE 75 

pose you do mind fol* yourself, but you might 
think of your cousin’s reputation! ” 

Joyce collapsed. “ Late! The Lady Eliza¬ 
beth -” 

“ There’s Lady Elizabeth’s office,” she in¬ 
formed Phyllis as they entered the broad hall, 
“ shall I go with you? ” 

“Oh, no—thank you!” Phyllis hastily de¬ 
clined the invitation. What the famous “ Lady 
Elizabeth ” was going to be like, she didn’t 
know, but she would find out without Joyce’s 
help! 

The Principal’s study, at least, was very 
likable, Phyllis found, when she entered it after 
a timid knock. Miss Anderson was busy at the 
time of Phyllis’ entrance, and merely motioned 
her to a seat, so Phyllis had time to study the 
Principal’s office, the Principal herself, and the 
girl opposite. 

Phyllis liked the room itself. It was simple 
enough in its almost Puritan style, but it had 
a fireplace, and to fireplace-loving Phyllis, any 
room with a fireplace was perfect! Miss An¬ 
derson herself was seated in a high-backed, 
curved-top chair, her hands, the hands which 



76 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


every girl in Hillcrest secretly envied, resting 
quietly in her lap, her keen black eyes (which 
every girl in Hillcrest openly feared) fixed on 
the girl before her. Then she looked at the 
girl, and suddenly something Phyllis had 
never felt before swept over her. She liked 
this girl with her clear friendly blue eyes and 
her singing voice! She liked her direct answers 
to Miss Anderson’s crisp questions; she even 
liked the way she sat. She liked everything 
about her! 

And then Miss Anderson said: “ That will 
be all, Miss Bradford,” and the girl rose to go. 
Phyllis leaned forward with a little gasp. 
“ Bradford!” Why, that was Carol’s name. 
Was it possible this could be Carol’s school? 

The girl caught the eager light which 
flashed into Phyllis’ wide eyes. She smiled at 
her with an almost imperceptible nod, and was 
gone. 

“ Now, my dear.” The Lady Elizabeth 
turned to Phyllis, and her smile would cer¬ 
tainly have been awe-inspiring to any girl who 
had not had the advantage of meeting Mr. 
Jeremiah Lancy’s gaze frequently. Phyllis 


THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE 77 


met the Principal’s searching eyes calmly, and 
answered her still more searching questions 
easily. No, she had never been at any school 
before. But her grandfather had seen to it 
she was given the regular public school exam¬ 
inations. Yes, Miss Patterson had taught her 
French; yes, Latin, too. No, Phyllis did not 
find her interview with the Lady Elizabeth 
very much of an ordeal. In fact, if there were 
any ordeals lying in wait for her, she was 
spared them for that morning, at least, by be¬ 
ing detained in the Principal’s office to under¬ 
go a rigid examination. To others, that office 
might be a lioness’ den to be approached with 
fear and trembling, but to Phyllis, it was a 
safe retreat. 

The ordeal began in the afternoon when, 
having finished the examination, Miss Ander¬ 
son rose, saying, “ I will accompany you to 
your classes, Miss Lancy,” and she followed 
the Lady Elizabeth from room to room along 
the wide corridors and stood facing classes of 
curious girls, trying to hide how very self- 
conscious and ill at ease she was. She at¬ 
tempted to smile at them, a friendly smile like 


78 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


the one the girl in Miss Anderson’s office had 
given her that morning, and succeeded re¬ 
markably well in giving her classmates the im¬ 
pression that Phyllis Lancy was a superior¬ 
looking prig. They returned her smile with a 
politely cool look, and went back to their 
books. 

The different teachers excused her from 
study that day, for which Phyllis was devoutly 
grateful. It gave her time to try to make her 
knees stop trembling and her throat stop 
throbbing. This was school! School! School! 
Phyllis shook herself to be sure it was really 
true. It seemed to be; the girls around her 
looked very much alive, and the walls seemed 
pretty solid! 

Joyce captured her when the class was dis¬ 
missed, whispering: “ I’ll see you in the gym 
afterward,” and whisked away before Phyllis 
could ask where the gym was or what “ after¬ 
ward ” she meant! 

She found the gymnasium with the help of 
a directing freshman finally, and, after that, 
there was no difficulty in locating Joyce. You 
could almost always depend on finding Joyce 


THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE 79 


where the greatest number of girls were, and 
just now she was busy entertaining a group 
ready for basket-ball practice with an account 
of something which seemed to be very interest¬ 
ing. Phyllis saw her perched on a convenient 
locker, after she had looked around the large 
room with its queer apparatus, and over the 
heads of several girls in gymnasium suits. She 
hesitated as she caught the words: “No, girls, 
she hasn't, honestly! ” but Joyce had seen her, 
standing as usual, on the edge of things, and 
she made a dramatic gesture: 

“ Come on over, Phyl! Here she is, girls. 
Please meet the Girl Who Has Never Been 
to School! ” 

“Oh—Joyce!” Phyllis protested, flushing 
up to the roots of her soft hair under the bat¬ 
tery of curious eyes. It was true, of course, 
but why did Joyce have to dwell on the sub¬ 
ject? 

“ It’s so, isn’t it? ” Joyce demanded calmly, 
“ and girls, that’s not the only wonderful thing 
about her! Listen! ” she settled herself more 
comfortably on the locker and proceeded: “ It 
doesn’t really seem possible, but she’s never 



80 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


had a regular hour to study or recite; she’s 
never had an examination in her life! ” 

“ I have,” Phyllis was goaded into inter¬ 
rupting, “ I’m not quite in the kindergarten! ” 
“ And she doesn’t know a solitary single 
thing about a canoe or how to play tennis! 
Her grandfather—he’s mine, too, of course, 
doesn’t approve of tennis. He says ‘ it isn’t a 
game for a lady.’ You’re not a lady, you see, 
Francie.” 

Francie, a small, slight, dark girl with imp¬ 
ish eyes, giggled. 

“ And she hasn’t the slightest idea about 
camping or hiking or Camp Fire Girls or Girl 
Scouts,” pursued the merciless Joyce. “ Now, 
girls, what do you think of that? ” 

The girls, aj)parently, did not know what 
to make of it. They stared at Phyllis as 
though she were a girl from an undiscovered 
country. A remark of her grandfather’s 
flashed through Phyllis’ mind. He had once 
told her that “ if a Lancy was a true Lancy, 
his work would always be thorough.” Well, 
Joyce certainly had claims to being a true 
Fancy! But Phyllis would have given every- 



THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE 81 

thing she owned to be back in the quiet old 
Lancy house! She had been lonely there some¬ 
times, but never like this! 

But she wasn’t! She was here, being intro¬ 
duced to her Land of Heart’s Desire. And, 
suddenly, Phyllis flung ux> her head. She 
could not go back—not now; but she could 
go on! 

“You haven’t introduced the girls yet, 
Joy,” she reminded her cousin. 

Joyce stared. “ Why—so I haven’t,” she 
said. “ Well, this is Baby. You met her this 
morning. And this one loving the ball is 
Lucy Thornton. Lucy’s our x Dr i ze fudge- 
maker; we exhibit her whenever we can. The 
next one is Francesca Matilda Hermonie 
Lang-” 

“Don’t, Joy!” said Francesca Matilda 
Hermonie, wincing. 

“ At least that’s what the Registrar calls her, 
but none of us ever do.” 

“You’d better not!” interrupted the pos¬ 
sessor of the name. 

“ We just say Francie and have done with 
it. Francie’s going to be tennis champion 




82 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

of America in a year or two. You’d bet¬ 
ter take Phyl’s education in hand, Francie. 
It’s a shame it’s been so shockingly neglected. 
And Emmie—come on out here, Emmie, 
where Phyl can see you!—is the beauty of the 
lot, always excepting me, of course. The 
poets have an awful fascination for Emmie. 
She has a positive gift for misquoting them! 
There! I think you know us all now.” 

“ Won’t you include me in your pleasant 
little introduction, Joy?” It was the girl 
Phyllis had seen in Miss Anderson’s office that 
morning. She had been in traveling dress 
then, but in her straight, simple blue school 
dress with its daintily crisped white cuffs and 
collar, Phyllis liked her more than ever; 
her heart almost ached to have this girl as a 
friend. 

“ Oh—Carol,” said Joyce, “ I didn’t see you 
come in! ” 

Carol’s eyes twinkled. “ You were busy,” 
her voice was so soft it really was odd it should 
make Joyce look slightly uncomfortable; 
“ please introduce me, Joy. I should hate to 
be left out! ” 


THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE 83 

“ Oh,” said Joyce, “ well, this is the meadow¬ 
lark of the school, Phyl. One of her ancestors 
came over with Captain John Smith, I 
think.” 

“ Myles Standish, I believe,” Carol Brad¬ 
ford murmured, “ not that it matters. Don’t 
feel too badly over it, Joy.” 

“ Oh well, I knew he did something! She’s 
a proctor, too. You’d better be careful how 
you behave when she’s about. She’s awfully 
stern! ” 

“ I suppose they call me ‘ Meadow-Lark ’ 
because I can’t sing,” Carol explained. 
“ What class are you in,—Phyllis? ” 

Phyllis shook her head. “ I don’t seem to 
be in any class,” she said slowly, and held out 
the card Miss Anderson had given her at dis¬ 
missal. 

Joyce pounced on it. “ Well, I-” she 

began. “ Girls! Do listen to this! ” 

Miss Anderson had instructed Phyllis 
Lancy to recite music and harmony alone; 
literature with the seniors; French with the 
juniors; domestic science and chemistry with 
the freshmen. Her other studies were to be 



84 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


recited with the sophomores. Joyce had never 
heard of such a thing, and she said so quite 
frankly, having first read the card aloud. 

“ Do you like music and harmony so 
much? ” Carol asked, under cover of the other’s 
exclamations. 

“ I love them,” Phyllis answered softly. 
Carol smiled at her. 

“ You’ll have to sing for us both, you know, 
so you’d better like it! ” 

Joyce had slipped from her seat. “ There 
comes Miss Jackson! Coming, Carol? If 
you are, you’ll have to hurry.” 

Phyllis instinctively moved away. She 
would be in the way now. But, to her sur¬ 
prise, Carol shook her head. 

“ N-no, I guess I’d better not. I twisted my 
wrist the day before Easter, so I think Phyllis 
and I will just watch and see if that little 
freshman can beat you as badly as she did the 
other day. Come on, Phyllis, what one girl 
can do, two can do; if Joy could sit up here, 
I guess we can. We’re neither of us as plump 
as she is! ” 

And suddenly Phyllis found herself where 


THE LAND OF HEART’S DESIRE 85 


she had dreamed of being so often, beside 
Carol Bradford, being initiated into one more 
mystery of the Land of Heart’s Desire—a 
basket-ball game, and she sighed contentedly. 
It might be a far more mysterious land than 
she had ever dreamed, but she was there, 
actually sitting beside Carol Bradford, and it 
did seem as if Carol was really going to be 
her friend! 



CHAPTER VII 


PHYLLIS AGREES WITH SHAKESPEARE 

“ Well,” said Uncle Robert, as Phyllis 
slipped into her seat opposite Joyce that night, 
“ how did school go to-day? ” 

“ Oh, it ran fairly smoothly,” Joyce helped 
herself to the most golden roll before she 
passed them. “ But I don’t know about 
Phyl. She spent the morning with Lady 
Elizabeth, and I only saw her afterward in 
gym. How did you like the Land of your 
Heart’s Desire, Phyl? ” 

Phyllis remembered the rigid examination 
Miss Anderson had given her; her bewilder¬ 
ment in studies; those awful moments when 
she stood before the different classes; Joyce’s 
introduction; and the purple talisman tucked 
away between two of her fattest books, and 
suddenly a smile as roguish as Joyce’s own 
flashed out. 

“ Why shouldn’t I like it, when it was my 
birthday present, and I chose it myself? ” 

86 


PHYLLIS AGREES WITH SHAKESPEARE 87 


“ Checkmated,” said Jerry softly from his 
side of the table, and Phyllis, who had played 
chess with her grandfather, smiled at him 
shyly. 

But her first fortnight in the Land of 
Heart’s Desire was anything but a triumphal 
progress! it was a fortnight, in fact, in 
which she suffered agonies. She was a for¬ 
eigner in a strange land, a land about which 
she knew absolutely nothing, and about which 
nobody troubled to teach her. With Miss 
Patterson, all her lessons had been impromptu, 
with the little cushioned window-seat in her 
room as a schoolroom; now she had to get 
used to a routine which seldom varied, no 
matter how often her own moods might 
change. She had to learn to wander from 
class to class and respect the idiosyncrasies of 
her different teachers, while they were too busy 
to care whether she had any or not, and Miss 
Patterson had been a patient teacher. When 
Phyllis had been tired or confused, she said: 
“ Put that book away, dear. We won’t think 
about that any more just now. Let’s try 
something else.” 


88 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


But here at Hillcrest, no matter how weary 
or perplexed or discouraged she was, and 
poor Phyllis was very often that her first 
fortnight, she had to plod on until the dis¬ 
missal bell released her. Altogether, it was 
not an easy fortnight, the fortnight in which 
Phyllis learned to agree with Shakespeare, 
that “ there was more in heaven and in earth 
than she had dreamed of ” ; and there were 
times when it seemed as if she could never 
learn all the laws of that mysterious world, 
School, when she blundered in the simplest 
matters, when Joyce’s delicate teasing was 
very hard to stand, when, worst of all, the 
other girls continued to stand politely aloof 
and amused; when the Lancy courage almost 
failed her, and, in spite of the purple talisman, 
she was almost tempted to give up. 

That was the day after Emily Batton had 
her party, the day after papers were returned 
from the English Literature test. Emily had 
succeeded in passing her favorite bugbear by 
the narrowest of margins. “ Come on up and 
see me this afternoon, girls,” she invited, “ I’ll 
have to do something to celebrate this truly 


PHYLLIS AGREES WITH SHAKESPEARE 89 


auspicious occasion! And Lu, I wouldn’t 
object if you brought the rest of your fudge 
along—you can’t have eaten it all yet! You, 
too,” nodding carelessly in Phyllis’ direction, 
because she happened to be standing beside 
Joyce. 

Phyllis’ heart beat uncomfortably. It was 
the first time she had been included. Was she 
going to begin her collection of friends to-day? 
And perhaps she might have, if the others had 
taken the trouble to look at her flushed cheeks 
and happy shining eyes before they jostled her 
into an obscure corner. Phyllis didn’t blame 
them for that—the space was limited. Baby 
and Joyce and Francie were crowded on the 
bed; Lucy Thornton and Dara Knight were 
sharing the one cosy chair their hostess had, 
and Emmie herself had dropped to her favorite 
seat, the floor. Phyllis should have been grate¬ 
ful for her comfortable stool in her secluded 
corner, but she wasn’t. It looked as though 
it would be much more fun to be as crowded 
as Baby was between Joyce and Francie; 
but the other girls evidently didn’t think 
it would have been. They—it was a humiliat¬ 
ing thing to have to admit, but they ap- 




90 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


j>arently had forgotten her presence, so Phyl¬ 
lis clasped her hands in her lap, and, as 
usual, watched and listened and went un¬ 
noticed. It was the first time she had ever 
been in that place of her dreams, a girl’s room 
at boarding-school, and having little else to do, 
her wide eyes took in all the plain furniture, 
slightly the worse for wear, all the sealing-wax 
curiosities and block-prints Dara, who was 
Emmie’s room-mate, amused herself by invent¬ 
ing, and the scattered papers neither of them 
could find places for. It looked as if Emmie 
Batton had a very good time here, but then 
Phyllis had noticed that Emmie usually man¬ 
aged to have a good time wherever she was! 
It was a habit she had! And then Emmie rose 
to reach the sandwiches she had found some¬ 
where, and Lucy’s prize fudge, and almost 
stumbled over her. 

“ Oh dear me, here’s Phyllis Lancy!” she 
cried, “ sitting far from the crowd’s noble 
strife! I forgot you were here, child! Well, 
do have some of Lu’s fudge—oh, take two 
pieces! I always believe in being generous 
with Lu’s fudge. Pier fudge is warrant for 



PHYLLIS AGREES WITH SHAKESPEARE 91 


her welcome. I don’t suppose we’d invite her, 
if it wasn’t for that fudge.” 

“ Thank you! ” drawled Lucy. 

“ Don’t bring her out here, Emmie,” advised 
Joyce. “ She likes little corners. She always 
aims for our alcove by the bookcases at home. 
I believe she’d spend the day there, if she 
could.” 

Reading maketh a full man,’ Shakespeare 
said,” observed Emmie inappropriately. 

“ Emmie! ” It was a chorus. “ Did you 
have that in your paper? ” 

“ Why—I may have. What’s the matter? ” 
“ Bacon may have written Shakespeare, 
Lamb,” Francie explained gently, “ but I 
never heard that Shakespeare wrote Bacon.” 

“ Oh, is that all? ” Emmie looked relieved. 
“Well, I passed, anyhow!” 

“ I haven’t heard of Miss Lyton’s being 
sick, have you? ” Dara inquired thoughtfully. 
“ If I had, I might have thought somebody else 
had passed on Emmie’s paper. But if Emmie 
passed, and she seems to have, there’s hopes 
for anybody, even the girl who asked Ellinor 
what a ‘ chem ’ was, the other day! ” 


92 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ That was Phyl!” giggled Joyce, as the 
color flamed into her cousin’s cheeks. 

“ Oh, was it you? ” Dara turned to look at 
the uncomfortable Phyllis. “ You’re the story¬ 
book girl; the one whose grandfather kept you 
shut up in his castle like the princess with the 
ogre? Honestly, don’t you know a thing 
about anything? ” 

“No, she honestly doesn’t,” Joyce answered 
for her. “ I don’t know whether there’s any 
hope for her or not, Dara! There are so many 
things she doesn’t know! She doesn’t know 
any more about basket-ball and things like 
that than if she was in the kindergarten! 
Grandfather doesn’t believe in them! How 
did you happen to have your hair bobbed, 
Phyl? Did you have to tease awfully hard? ” 

“ No,” said Phyllis soberly. 

“ Lancy maids have courage, too,” the poem 
had said, and the Lancy courage is a fortunate 
thing to have, sometimes. The next day, 
Phyllis, gathering up her materials in the do¬ 
mestic science room, was passed by two girls 
on their way to the door. They nodded 
casually, and Phyllis had just time to nod back 


PHYLLIS AGREES WITH SHAKESPEARE 93 

in a frightened way before they were gone, and 
their voices floating back to her: 

“ Did you ever see such a little icicle? She 
was up in Emmie’s room yesterday-” 

“ Icicle! ” Phyllis had no need to hear any 
more. She stood quite still, her egg-beater 
still in her hand, all her despair in her wide 
grey eyes. Miss Clay, coming in, found her 
still standing there. 

“ Y r ou may go, Miss Lancy; the classes have 
been dismissed, you know.” 

Phyllis nodded silently and fled out into the 
hall towards the cloak-room. “Icicle!” That 
was what Herbert Richardon had called her, 
before he really knew her; after that he said 
she was an iceberg. Her fingers, as they 
fastened her cape, were cold enough to belong 
to an icicle! Would she always be an icicle? 
Would she never be able to be a girl? She 
had tried! She had! 



CHAPTER VIII 


THE INTERFERENCE OF JERRY 

It was May, by this time, and Hillcrest 
Avenue was strewn with maple-blossoms as 
Phyllis walked despondently down it. It 
wasn’t a good day to be despondent. The 
wind, which should have been from the sun¬ 
shiny south, was blowing from the east, and 
the sky, which ought to have been blue, was 
covered with cold-looking clouds. To add to 
the misery of the day, it began to rain, not a 
hard, merry little rain, but a small dejected 
drizzle that was almost as miserable as Phyllis 
was, as she walked alone down the Avenue. 
There were other girls who dashed past 
Phyllis with gay little shrieks, but Phyllis was 
as far from joining them as she had been 
when she sat in the window-seat of Lancy 
House, wistfully watching the girls from the 
school on the corner. Phyllis was discouraged. 
It seemed that a girl w T ho had been at school 

91 




THE INTERFERENCE OF JERRY 95 


almost a month, and who had the advantage 
of living with a cousin who was perfectly at 
home there, should have stopped being an 
icicle! Phyllis had fought off the homesick¬ 
ness and loneliness that had attacked her, but 
to-day it was different. To-day, Despair had 
joined them; and Despair is a bad enemy to 
have. Phyllis was tired and hurt and dis¬ 
couraged. She wanted to give up, but she 
couldn’t! She could fairly see the scorn in 
her grandfather’s piercing blue eyes if she 
did, and hear it in his voice as he would 
say: “ So you failed? Failed to go through 
with your venture? ” And she knew she 
would hate herself for backing down. Back¬ 
ing down at fourteen! She wouldn’t! She 
would make those girls like her, if it took her 
the entire year to do it! She stood still at the 
curb and clenched her slender fingers until 
they hurt. But—sometimes—people did lose, 
didn’t they, no matter how hard they fought? 
Perhaps she was going to be “ Phyllis the 
Friendless ” all her life! 

“ O-o-oli! ” said Phyllis with a long, shud¬ 
dering breath. 


96 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


A car came around the corner and stopped 
at the curb. 

“ Are you in a hurry to get home, Phyl? 
Or would you like a little ride first? You’ll 
be warm enough, I think.” Jerry opened the 
door. “ Get in.” 

Phyllis got in. She didn’t understand it— 
Jerry had none of his grandfather’s command¬ 
ing air, but when he said “ Get in,” you found 
yourself getting in! Even Joyce obeyed him 
meekly. 

“ That’s nice,” said Jerry Lancy comfort¬ 
ably, closing the door. “ It’s better than 
walking in this drizzle. Do you like riding in 
the rain, Phyl? Lots of people don’t, but I 
do, especially when my mind gets in a mud¬ 
dle—or perhaps your mind never gets in a 
muddle? ” 

Jerry was carefully turning a corner just 
then. 

“ Oh, it does! ” Phyllis cried fervently, “ it’s 
there now! ” 

“ U-um? ” said her cousin. (Phyllis did 
not know how very delusive Jerry’s “ U-um? ” 
could be, but Jerry knew it was not for nothing 



THE INTERFERENCE OF JERRY 97 

that Phyllis looked as if she were standing at 
bay when he had turned the corner of Hill- 
crest Avenue!) 

“Yes!” said Phyllis with a little catch in 
her breath. She put her hand on the door. 
She was suddenly awfully tired, and she had 
a terrible temptation to tell her cousin about 
the “ muddle ” she was in, but Phyllis was 
not a girl who could confide easily, even to 
such a friendly person as Jerry was, so they 
rode on in silence. Then Phyllis began cau¬ 
tiously: “Jerry, may I ask you a question? 
Jerry—is an—icicle any use? ” 

“ Certainly is,” said Jerry Lancy, “ it’s 
pretty.” 

“But that isn’t what I mean!” cried 
Phyllis. “ Isn’t it good for anything except 
just to be— pretty? ” 

“ Certainly is,” affirmed the cautious Jerry, 
“ it can melt.” 

“O-oh!” said Phyllis softly, “I never 
thought of that! ” 

“ And then, if it’s a sensible icicle,” con¬ 
tinued her cousin, skilfully swinging around 
another curve, “ it can water something—a 





98 


THE 44 ICICLE ” MELTS 


pansy bed, for instance. Well, here I am, 
Phyl. I don’t expect to be long.” 

Phyllis wouldn’t have cared if he had spent 
the whole afternoon making that particular 
call. The rain, grown noisy now, pattered 
down on the little roof above her head, and 
made a happy little accompaniment to the tune 
her heart was singing: “An icicle can melt! 
An—icicle—can—melt! An icicle can melt! ” 
And then, if it were a sensible icicle, it could 
water a pansy bed. A pansy bed! Phyllis 
stopped suddenly, as the damp little wind blew 
against her cheek. Pansies were called 
“ heartsease,” weren’t they? And Jerry had 
said an icicle could water a pansy bed! So 
that was what icicles were for, was it? 

Jerry was gone longer than he had thought 
he would be, but Phyllis didn’t care. She 
smiled at him when he took his seat again, but 
when Phyllis was very happy she didn’t want 
to talk, so it was Jerry who picked up the con¬ 
versation just where he had left it: 

“ Or your icicle might water a larger plant,” 
he remarked, as if nothing had happened in 
between, “ like a fleur-de-lis.” 



THE INTERFERENCE OF JERRY 99 

Phyllis jumped, but Jerry wasn’t looking at 
her. “I’m an awful meddler, Phyl—lots of* 
people have told me so; I forced a talisman 
on you, and now I’m going to supply you with 
a battle-cry: 4 1 will study and prepare, and 
my time will come.’ ” 

“ 4 1 will study and prepare, and my time 
will come!’” Phyllis said it over softly, and 
with wide eyes. 44 1—like that. It does 
sound like a battle-cry! ” 

44 It is. And his time did come. Abraham 
Lincoln’s my favorite hero, that’s why I like 
it, I suppose. That’s our Tennis Club over 
there. Are you going to learn, Phyl? ” 

Phyllis flushed. 44 1 was,” she admitted, 
“ but-” 

44 But you haven’t a racquet? Well, I’ll 
get you one; I’ll see if I can find mine, 
and the garage door is a pretty good thing 
to practise against. There’s no danger of 
breaking its nose, the way Joy did mine when 
I was teaching her to play! ” 

Phyllis giggled as he let her out. She ran 
through the rain to the house, and her eyes 
were shining. 




100 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


I will study and prepare, and my time will come. 

She was singing a gay little song as she 
skipped up-stairs. 

Joyce was in the upper hall. She leaned 
over the railing to gaze at her cousin in wide- 
eyed astonishment. “ You never told me you 
could sing like that! ” she said reproachfully. 

Phyllis laughed. With her pink cheeks 
and damp little curls, she looked anything but 
an icicle! 

“ Didn’t I? ” she said sweetly. “ Well, you 
never asked me, Joy,” and, leaving Joyce to 
stare after her, she disappeared into the green 
room and closed the door. Joyce heard a little 
laugh, but she could not see Phyllis, after she 
had hung the cape away, sit down at the little 
desk and draw a comfortably large-sized pad 
towards her. Phyllis had an idea. Once or 
twice she dimpled as she wrote, and when she 
finished, she surveyed the sheet she had cov¬ 
ered with her small, very clear handwriting 
with satisfaction. 

“ I don’t think I’ve left anything out,” she 
told the other Phyllis as she searched her 


THE INTERFERENCE OF JERRY 101 


drawer for an envelope, and if Joyce had seen 
her cousin’s “ Campaign Outline,” she would 
have agreed with her. Phyllis had written: 

“ I hereby organize and issue this Charter 
to the Society for Improving Phyllis 
Lancy. This Society is to direct all 
the improvements listed below and any 
other that shall be deemed necessary, 
and to call attention to any neglect on 
her part to further them. She is to be 
required to submit reports of progress, 
and submit herself to the admonition of 
the Society, and she shall diligently 
seek to 

Become a sensible Icicle; 

Learn to play tennis; 

Study basket-ball; 

Learn how to be a friend; 

Study slang if I—I mean she, 
has to get a dictionary of the language 
to do it! And the Society hereby 
adopts as her campaign slogan 4 I Will 
Study and Prepare, and My Time Will 
Come! ’ 

Signed and sealed this 12th day of May, 

“ Phyllis Stanhope Lancy.” 


102 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


She did seal it, with a heavy circle of the 
sealing-wax Miss Patterson had once given 
her. Then she carefully slipped it into an 
empty pigeonhole, where she would see it 
when she put her school papers away at night 
and took them out again in the morning. 

And the sight of the long envelope did re¬ 
mind her of the “ Campaign,” as she gathered 
her books together the next morning. It sent a 
happy thrill over her to repeat the “ Slogan ” 
with which it ended: “ I Will Study and 
Prepare, and My Time Will Come! ” 

Phyllis was feeling particularly joyous any¬ 
way that morning as she walked up Hillcrest 
Avenue with Joyce. It was an almost per¬ 
fect May day, and Phyllis thought she had 
never seen anything more lovely than Madam 
Halstead’s fragrant orchards lining the Ave¬ 
nue. 

Just as they entered the corridor, Dara ap¬ 
peared on the scene. She beckoned im¬ 
patiently. “ Hurry up, Joy. Emmie wants 
us to plan for the Soph supper, and we’ve got 
just about four minutes! Just like her to wait 
until three days before the date! ” 


THE INTERFERENCE OF JERRY 103 


“ All right,” Joyce assented. “Coming, 
Phyl? Y r ou’ll have to attend all the class sup¬ 
pers, you’re so mixed up! ” 

“ Perhaps-” Phyllis began. 

“ Oh, yes, the ic—her Lancyness can come 
if she wants to.” 

It was no time for the organizer of the So¬ 
ciety for Improving Phyllis Lancy to falter. 
She should have answered: “ Of course I do! ” 
but she did falter, and what she said was: 

“No, thank you. I’ll go on.” 

The room where Miss Mary Markes and 
Algebra presided was deserted except for a 
single girl who was putting great golden tulips 
on Miss Markes’ desk. She looked up and 
smiled, but Phyllis was in no frame of mind 
for smiling back. She should have gone with 
Joy and Dara. Why had she been such an 
idiot? 

She began arranging her papers and books 
in her desk. They had an embarrassing 
habit of tumbling out into her lap when she 
least wanted them there. The girls in her 
classes looked forward to seeing them spill. 
Phyllis 


ruefully remembered the verse m 



104 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


The Bonfire which had come out three days 
ago: 

“ There’s a girl with the Sophs named Phyl, 
Whose books can be depended on to spill, 

And upset a lull 
In a period dull, 

All thanks be to you, dearest Phyl! ” 

“ Excuse me. You don’t seem to get the 
knack of it. Suppose I show you? May I? ” 

Carol had turned from Miss Markes’ desk 
and she was smiling at Phyllis in a more 
friendly way than any girl had ever smiled at 
her before, and Phyllis, meeting her straight¬ 
forward gaze, remembered the day on the gym¬ 
nasium locker, and that Carol hadn’t been one 
of the girls who condescendingly acted as if 
she belonged in the kindergarten. 

Poor, stubborn, pride-bound Phyllis Lancy! 
She had never wanted to do anything as much 
as she wanted to say to Carol “ Yes! Please 
show me! I don’t seem to know how to do 
anything! ” And then she opened her lips 
and heard herself saying: 

“No, thank you. I can do it myself.” 


\ 


THE INTERFERENCE OF JERRY 105 


Carol looked at her, a long, straight look, 
and then suddenly she moved across the aisle 
to Phyllis’ desk. 

“ Get up,” she said. 

Without a look for the owner of the desk, 
Carol slipped into the vacated seat and began 
to arrange the books and papers with a deft¬ 
ness which Phyllis, standing humbly by, en¬ 
vied with all her heart. And yet it looked so 
simple the way Carol was doing it! Carol 
was a dear, but as for Phyllis Lancy, well, 
Herbert Richardon had been right. She 
wasn’t a girl; she was only an iceberg. What 
had possessed her to treat Carol in that hor¬ 
rible way? 

And then Carol stood up. “ There,” she 
said, “ that’s the way we do it here. You just 
didn’t understand the trick. I hope you won’t 
have any more trouble.” 

“ Carol! Oh—Carol, please forgive me! ” 

“ Oh, never mind now, Phyllis, please; the 
girls are coming.” Carol smiled again, but 
she turned away. But as for trouble—Phyllis 
knew what it was that day. All day she re¬ 
membered her haughty refusal of Carol’s help, 




106 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


whenever she took a book from her desk, when¬ 
ever Carol rose to recite. Carol, the girl she 
wanted for a friend. And, as usual, she had 
acted just like a mule! Carol would never be 
her friend now, and she hadn’t been worthy of 
her. She deserved losing her! 

But knowing you deserve a thing, doesn’t 
make it easier to bear. Phyllis spent a very 
miserable day, the Lancy heart very, very low. 

What was the matter with her? What was 
it? What had possessed her that morning? 
And she had lost Carol’s friendship, the friend¬ 
ship of the girl she loved! 


CHAPTER IX 


JERRY PRESCRIBES A TONIC 

“You certainly did get yourself into a mess 
to-day!’’ observed Joyce candidly, as they 
walked down the Avenue. “ What possessed 
you, Phyl Lancy? I wouldn’t have made a 
good Roman, I know that , but I don’t believe 
I ever managed to give such an awful Latin 
recitation as you did this morning! And you 
know perfectly well Thackeray didn’t write 
Last Lays of Pompeii! Oh, I know what you 
said! Betty’s sister told her. And let me tell 
you one thing: you won’t find it a joke if Miss 
Lyton takes it into her head to drop you from 
senior Lit. Will she, Baby? ” 

Baby, who had had occasion to know Miss 
Lyton’s ability along that line, grinned. 
“ Well, it isn’t at all funny getting back, I 
can tell you that! ” 

“What happened to you, anyway?” de- 

107 


108 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


manded Joyce, who was nothing if not blessed 
with persistence. 

“ Why—I—I don’t believe anything-” 

“ Oh, you go to olly-doddle! You—Baby, 
is that small cyclone Kits? Well, Kits, when 
did you get home? ” 

“ Morning,” Kits panted, coming to a stand¬ 
still on the Lancy walk. Her short gold curls 
tumbled all over her head, and her eyes were 
as blue as the sky. Altogether, the combina¬ 
tion reminded Phyllis of one of the princesses 
in the great book of fairy tales her grandfather 
had once given her. 

“Will you come and get Comfie?” Kits 
was inquiring, an anxious little note in her 
voice. 

“ Comfie? Where is he? Don’t tell me 
you and he are in another scrape? ” 

“ He’s up in the cherwy-twee. We corned 
over to see Jerwy’s garden, but Comfie 
wunned! Tommy’s digging up Jerwy’s gar¬ 
den, and he threw a stone at Comfie and 
barked just like a dog! And Comfie wunned. 
And now he wants to get down! ” 

“ Oh, if that’s all, why he’s all right,” said 




JERRY PRESCRIBES A TONIC 109 

Joyce comfortably. “ I thought perhaps you’d 
dropped him down the well again.” 

“ Cats were made to go up and down trees 
just as you go up and down stairs,” Baby 
added reasonably, as she and Joyce moved up 
the walk. 

I’ll go with you, Kits,” Phyllis offered; 
“ where is he? ” 

Comfie was perched precariously at the ex¬ 
treme end of a very slender limb of the cherry- 
tree at the edge of the garden. Phyllis looked 
at him doubtfully. The tree was too slender 
for her to climb, but the branch was much too 
high for her to reach. 

“Let me- If Jerry’s home-” 

“ Jerwy doesn’t like Comfie very much,” 
Kits informed her. “ I’ll tell you, Phylwis: 
you lift me up that twee and then I’ll push 
that bwanch down and you can get Comfie! ” 
Phyllis eyed her dubiously. “ Can you 
climb? ” 

“’Course I can climb!” responded Kits 
indignantly, “ you lift me up that twee and 
see, Phylwis! Jerwy lets me lots! ” 

The child was surprisingly light, but Phyl- 




110 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


lis held her breath. It seemed to her the 
branch was beginning to bend pretty peri¬ 
lously. She ought to have gotten a ladder, but 
she wasn’t used to rescuing kittens, and she 
hadn’t had the least idea how to go to work. 

Suppose that branch broke- But she 

jumped and caught the end. Comfie was just 
out of her reach, and he backed a few inches 
nearer Kits and clung stubbornly to the branch 
he had been so anxious to leave two seconds be¬ 
fore, and humped his back at his rescuer. 
Phyllis took a last desperate grip just as Kits, 
up in the tree, slid farther forward and tried to 
reach him from her end. Just what happened 
after that Phyllis could never quite remember, 
but, all at once, Kits and Comfie and Phyllis 
Lancy were all sliding to the ground in one 
heap. For a minute, none of them had breath 
enough to do anything. Then Kits scrambled 
to her feet and giggled. 

“Wasn’t that fun?” she inquired of Phyl¬ 
lis as she reached for Comfie, “ just like a 
nelevator! ” 

Phyllis shook the dirt and leaves out of her 
eyes, and gasped. 



JERRY PRESCRIBES A TONIC 111 


“Well—I—I hope Comfie isn’t hurt?” 

The gold curls shook. “No, he isn’t, it’s 
just his nerves, you see.” 

“Oh!” said Phyllis weakly. Were all 
babies like that, so funny and dear and wise 
that it made you want to take them up and 
love them hard? Phyllis had never known a 
baby before, and even Comfie—Mr. Lancy 
despised cats, and Miss Patterson hadn’t liked 
dogs in the least. The only pets Phyllis had 
ever had were her two goldfish, and goldfish 
do not put their heads in your hand and look 
up at you as if they loved you, and purr the 
way Comfie was doing to Kits! 

“ Do you suppose it would hurt his nerves 
if I rubbed his little painted nose? ” 

Comfie did not appear to mind. 

“ He likes you,” said Kits in the tone of one 
conferring a great compliment, “ he likes you, 
Phylwis.” 

It was silly, but suddenly Phyllis had to 
swallow something in her throat. “ I’m—I’m 
so glad! But who told you my name was 
Phyllis? ” 

“ Jerwy. He said you were lonely, and I 


112 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


must come see you. And I’m Kits. My whole 
big name is Kaserine Elsbef Saunders, but 
they coundn’t say that evewy day, so they say 
‘ Kits.’ And Comfie’s name is ‘ Comfort Kit/ 
but he doesn’t know it. Jerwy named him.” 

“ That’s too bad,” laughed Phyllis, “ too 
bad he doesn’t know his ‘ big ’ name, I mean, 
but Comfie is a pretty nice one, I think. 
Where do you live, honey? ” 

“ Over there,” Kits pointed to the large 
house, directly opposite the Lancy home, which 
had been closed since Phyllis had been in 
Parkview. “ We’ve been ’way. We just got 
back. Isn’t it nice and big? It hasn’t got a 
gar-den like Jerwy’s, though,” she added re¬ 
gretfully. “ I like Jerwy’s gar-den. Jerwy put 
a sfwing in it for me, and Billy and I play in 
it. Those twees are just wight when you play 
In-di-an. Comfie’s a bear then, but Jerwy 
doesn’t like him to be in his gar-den so vewy 
much. He ate a hydwanga-twee once. Jerwy 
didn’t like him at all then.” 

“ Ate a hydranga , child? ” Phyllis stared 
at the remarkable kitten. “ Are you sure? ” 

The curls bobbed. “Yes! That one! Jerwy 


JERRY PRESCRIBES A TONIC 113 


put a bandwage on it, and it got well. Jerwy 
knows a lot of tings! ” 

A clear sweet whistle floated over into the 
garden. Phyllis thought it was a bluebird, hut 
Ivits knew better. 

“ That’s Muddie! I guess she wants me to 
help her now.” She tucked Comfie compe¬ 
tently under her arm, head first. “ Good-bye, 
Phylwis.” And then she made the remark 
which made Phyllis her abject slave forever. 
“ I like you best-er than Joy.” 

It was not funny to Phyllis. The garden 
whirled around her. And suddenly she found 
herself gathering both the Comfort Kits into 
her arms and holding them very tightly. Kits 
didn’t seem to object, but, after a moment, she 
gently disentangled herself. 

“ Comfie doesn’t like to be sqweezed, ’cept 
when I do it,” she explained. 

“Wise Comfie!” laughed Phyllis. 

Her eyes were very soft as she watched Kits 
disappear into the house opposite. No baby 
had ever put her soft little arms about her neck 
before. Phyllis was suddenly very, very glad 
she had come to Parkview. 


114 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Joyce and Baby were in the kitchen mak¬ 
ing Joyce’s favorite sea-foam candy. Joyce 
was very particular about her sea-foam. It 
was the one time when she didn’t talk, Jerry 
said, and she had just reached the critical stage 
when Phyllis made her appearance. At 
sight of her cousin, Joyce nearly dropped the 
very sticky spoon she held poised over the pan. 
“ Phyllis Lancy! What have you been doing 
to yourself? ” 

Phyllis laughed. “ The—the Comfort Kits 
slid out of the cherry-tree,” she explained, 
“ that’s all.” 

Baby began to laugh, but Joyce still looked 
puzzled. “ The Comfort Kits? Comfie’s sin¬ 
gular—very singular, according to Kits, but 
he isn’t plural! ” 

“ There’s Kits,” Phyllis pointed out. 

“ Oh. O-h! ” Joyce turned quickly back to 
her neglected sea-foam. “ Why didn’t you 
remind me, Baby? ” She did deft things to 
the pan before she set it on the table and began 
to beat. “Kits isn’t such a comfort! She’s 
forever getting into scrapes! Used to run 
away all the time, and once, at Sallie Martin’s 



JERRY PRESCRIBES A TONIC 115 

birthday-party, Kits got so excited when they 
were playing hide-and-seek that she turned the 
key in the door and then couldn’t turn it back 
again, arid Mrs. Martin had to get her out of 
the window. It was an up-stairs one, too, of 
course. Nobody but Kits would have thought 
of doing such a thing. Remember it, Baby? ” 

Baby nodded. “ And she and Billy smashed 
Mr. Carpenter’s hot-bed glass this winter. 
Kits said they were playing ‘ Firemens.’ It 
was her idea, of course. No, I wouldn’t call 
her a comfort, Phyl.” 

“ Jerry calls her the neighborhood tonic,” 
added Joyce. “ Well, how did you like her, 
Phyl? ” 

“ I loved her.” 

Joyce nodded sagely. “ Thought you would. 
Kits is a spoiled child, though. All only chil¬ 
dren are, I’ve noticed.” 

Phyllis wisely let this pass, though she saw 
the mischief-imps in Baby’s eyes. She sat 
down at the opposite side of the table. “ Is it 
almost done, Joy? I heard Francie and 
Emmie talking about your sea-foam yester¬ 
day.” 


116 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Um—I don’t—know,” Joyce always 

« 

sounded important when she was making her 
own special sea-foam. “ By the way, did you 
notice her hair? What color is it? 

“ I think,” Phyllis hesitated a little, “ I 
think it’s something like a bed of goldenrod 
with the late afternoon sun shining on it.” 

Joyce put down her spoon to stare at her 
cousin in blank amazement. “ Bed of golden- 
rod—with—the late—afternoon sun shining on 
it!” she repeated. “ You must be a poet, 
Phyl! ” 

But later, when Joyce had gone with Baby 
to the Parkview Library, and Phyllis was in 
her favorite fireplace corner, she began to 
wonder about several things. Jerry called Kits 
a tonic, and Kits had said Jerry had told her 
about Phyllis. 

She did not have to wonder long. Jerry 
himself came in to look over the afternoon mail 
the postman had just brought. 

“ Been out to the garden to-day? ” he in¬ 
quired casually. 

There was only one thing to do when Jerry 
Lancy looked at you with that half-quizzi- 




JERRY PRESCRIBES A TONIC 117 

cal light in his blue eyes, and Phyllis did it. 
She looked at him until an answering light 
danced into her own. “ Y r es,” she said. 
“Everything was doing beautifully; and— 

Doctor Lancy-” 

“ Yes? ” 

“ I like your tonics very much, Doctor 
Lancy,” said the quiet voice from the chimney- 
seat. 



CHAPTER X 


FIRE MAIDEN 

“ Where are all those cunning little pads 
you had, Phyl? ” Joyce demanded that even¬ 
ing. “ They were just the things for algebra 
—ugh!—homework.” 

“ For your evening duel with that subject, 
don’t you mean? ” her brother inquired gently. 
Joyce turned her back on him. 

“ They’re in my desk up-stairs, Joy,” Phyl¬ 
lis answered. “ I’ll get you one.” 

“I’ll come, too!” announced her cousin, 
gathering up her books. “ It’ll be quieter up 
there! ” 

She accepted the pad and retired to perch 
on the foot of Phyllis’ bed, where, after several 
minutes of wiggling, she opened her algebra 
with a long sigh and picked up her pencil. 
Phyllis, in the cosy chair, picked up hers, also. 
But, although Phyllis frowned over several 

118 



FIRE MAIDEN 


119 


problems, they were not algebraical ones. The 
“ Campaign Outline ” envelope had tumbled 
out of its pigeonhole when she reached in for 
Joyce’s pad. Phyllis was remembering the 
contents of that long and slender envelope. 
Her Campaign had certainly had a slightly in¬ 
auspicious beginning, but then, Phyllis rea¬ 
soned philosophically, you couldn’t expect to 
win every skirmish. 

Oh, it was so awfully different from what 
she had dreamed, back in the old Lancv house! 
Oh, the girls were nice, all of them, even Dara 
Knight who had first called her an Icicle and 
then “ Her Lancyness! ” She liked the funny 
things they said, and the surprising ways they 
had of entertaining each other, and the clever 
ways they knew to make things out of nothing 
at all, even though sometimes, when she was 
with them, she felt very small and ignorant 
and insignificant and, as if, as Joy had said, 
she really did belong in the kindergarten! 
And Phyllis couldn’t help wishing they would 
like her a tiny bit, in return. She stifled a 
sigh. She had been at Hillcrest almost a 
month, and still seemed an outsider. 


120 


THE 44 ICICLE ” MELTS 


More than one morning while she was dress¬ 
ing, she had gathered her courage together to 
try and tell Joy how strange and eager and 
friend-hungry she was, and how much she 
wanted to learn to talk and act like the rest of 
Hillcrest girls, and then at sight of her cousin’s 
teasing eyes, her courage evaporated. 

When girls in books were new and embar¬ 
rassed and shy at school, all they had to do was 
to mend somebody’s glove, or paint a chair for 
the president of the senior class ? or save a 
basket-ball game from failure at the last min¬ 
ute, to be liked forever afterward! But Phyl¬ 
lis wasn’t in a book, and things didn’t seem to 
work that way with her. When she had tried 
to help Ellinor Sherwin that morning, her offer 
had been refused. 

Phyllis had passed Ellinor and another girl 
in the corridor. Ellinor was a sophomore, and, 
next to Joy and Carol, Phyllis thought her the 
nicest girl she had ever seen. She had caught 
her saying: “ Wish I had time to run down to 
the library and see if that scamp Francie has 
returned that book on Indian Art!” 

Phyllis had hesitated, and then turned back. 


FIRE MAIDEN 


121 


“ Ellinor—Ellinor, I—I heard about the book. 
I’m going past the library now. Sha’n’t I ask 
Miss Kent about it, and reserve it for you? ” 

“ Oh, no, thank you, Phyllis,” Ellinor 
answered indifferently. “ I’ll probably find a 
minute to go myself. I’d much rather you 
didn’t bother.” 

“ I wish you had let her! ” Sally’s regretful 
voice came back to Phyllis. “ Think of the 
Icicle’s offering! ” 

But—the Icicle sat very straight in the cosy 
green chair, a light of battle in her eyes, the 
Lancy chin raised to that firm little angle. 
Jerry had said icicles could melt! 

“Joy!” 

“ U-um? ” Joyce was scowling at her page. 

“ Do you belong to the Girl Scouts or the 
Camp Fire Girls or anything like that? ” 

“ Why—what-” Joyce was not used to 

having sudden questions fired at her. It was 
usually Joyce who did the firing! 

“ Do you?” 

“ Why—yes, of course I do! There’s a 
Camp Fire at school; I thought I told you 
about it.” 







122 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ What do you have to do to join? ” 

“ Why—you have to know the President, 
and your Governor, and learn the law of the 
fire, and a few things like that. Why? Do 
you want to join? ” 

“ Yes, I might. Do you suppose Miss Jack- 
son would have any objection if I watched 
basket-ball practice? ” 

“Why-” Joyce said “why” for the 

fourth time. It was the only thing she could 
think of to say. Phyllis was taking her role. 
“ I don’t suppose so. You could ask her. 
Why? Do you want to play? ” 

Phyllis nodded. 

The next afternoon Phyllis went home 
alone. Joyce and Baby had stayed to play 
tennis with Francie and Dara, and it wasn’t 
especially interesting to simply stand by and 
watch them! She would have asked them to 
try and teach her, but, although she opened her 
mouth to do it at least three times, she couldn’t 
get the words out, not with Dara listening. 
What there was about Dara she never could 
decide, but whenever she looked at her, Phyllis 
had the uncomfortable feeling of being about 



FIRE MAIDEN 


123 


the size of an ant! No, she couldn’t ask them 
to teach her, not before Dara! 

“I’ll go down to the brook,” she thought, 
wandering away from the tennis-courts. Hill- 
crest’s brook was still as lovely as it had been 
when the other Phyllis had studied beside it, as 
it bubbled out of two little springs, and went 
laughing past a clump of willow-trees. But 
Phyllis didn’t get all the way down through 
the sloping meadow to-day, because, as she 
stood beside the orchard-gate, she saw another 
girl crossing the little bridge, and the other girl 
was Carol. Phyllis still had a very sore spot 
in her heart over Carol. She had had a very 
bad ten minutes one day trying to apologize 
for her behavior of the other morning. Carol 
had listened very sweetly, although Phyllis 
discovered afterward that she had had just 
half an hour to reach the train she was to take 
to the city with a teacher, and, at the end, she 
had smiled and held out her hand. 

“ Don’t say anything more about it, Phyllis, 
and don’t think about it.” 

But Phyllis, wistfully watching her turn 
back up-stairs—and she had found that Carol 


124 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


had the tower room that had been her mother’s 
—still had the little ache in her heart. And, 
although Carol smiled at her and spoke, it 
wasn’t—well, it wasn’t the same Carol who 
had perched beside her on the gymnasium 
locker on her first day at ITillcrest. And Joyce 
must have seen something, for, one day, she 
asked: “ Haven’t squabbled with Carol, have 
you? ” 

“ Oh— no! ” 

“ Well, I wouldn’t advise you to. She’s a 
darling, but if Lady Elizabeth offered a prize 
for temper and pride, Carol’d get it. Ellinor 
had a little scrap with her last year, and, for 
two whole terms, Carol never knew Ellinor 
was in the school.” 

And Carol was the girl she had been dream¬ 
ing about, even before she came to Hillcrest! 
And she loved her so! 

Phyllis stood irresolutely by the little rail 
gate, then she turned back and went on 
down Hillcrest Avenue, bitterly ashamed for 
having been a coward twice that afternoon. 
Kits and Comfie and Billy Robbins were play¬ 
ing “ Indian” under the trees in “Jeremiah’s 




FIRE MAIDEN 


125 


Pride.” Aunt Margaret was out. Phyllis 
didn’t want to read, and she didn’t want to 
write letters—although she owed one to Miss 
Patterson. Finally she took up the racquet 
Jerry had given her, and a ball, and went out 
to play a game with the garage-door. 

Mrs. Saunders found her playing it when 
she called for the Comfort Kits. 

“ Is it an interesting game? ” 

Phyllis jumped. “ Why—oh—I suppose 
you think it’s awfully funny I don’t play, up 
at Hillcrest,” the soft color flamed into her 
cheeks, “ but you see there were four of them 
this afternoon, and they can all play splen¬ 
didly, and I—I don’t know anything about it. 
It’s a shame to ask them to stop and teach 
me.” 

Mrs. Saunders nodded, her eyes under¬ 
standing. 

“ Of course it would be. But there’s no one 
to play with me, and I love tennis! I wish I 
could play it in winter! Would you mind 
coming over and playing with me? It would 
be fun to teach you! ” 

Phyllis’ anxious eyes searched hers. 



126 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

“ Really? ” 

“ Really! You can come five times a week, 
if you want to. I never can get enough! ” 
Phyllis laughed excitedly. “ Oh, I’ll come! ” 
That next week was a busy one for Phyllis. 
She was studying tennis as hard as she studied 
French or algebra—and liked it much better, 
even though the tennis made her sore and stiff 
at first; and she was learning the things Miss 
Nita Farendale, Guardian of Hillcrest’s 
Camp Fire Group, had said were necessary to 
know before the next meeting of the Camp 
Fire. 

But, on the afternoon before the meeting, 
she walked home very soberly. There had 
been a collision in the domestic science class. 
Phyllis had been too preoccupied with her soup 
to notice Edna Ray’s blind rush. Edna had 
picked up a pot of potatoes without a holder, 
and had run into Phyllis “ head-on,” little 
Doran Meade observed afterward. Edna’s 
screams brought Miss Clay and a dozen girls to 
her rescue, but it never occurred to any of them 
that the steaming soup might have splashed 
over the hand that stirred it. And Phyllis 



FIRE MAIDEN 


127 


had simply set her teeth and said nothing, but, 
by the time she reached home, there was 
enough fire in her hand to have cooked Edna’s 
potatoes without any other help! 

“ What makes you so funny? ” asked Joyce. 
“ Are you scared about to-night? You needn’t 
be; this isn’t a secret society.” 

“ No,” said Phyllis. 

“ Then—you passed all your tests, didn’t 
you? ” 

“ No,” said Phyllis again, simply because 
Joy seemed to expect her to say something. 

“ You didnt? Which one was it? ” 

“ What? Oh—I just don’t feel like talking, 
Joy.” 

“ Well, of all the cool cucumbers I ever 
saw-! ” exploded Joyce. 

Aunt Margaret smiled at them as she 
opened the door. “ We’re going to have choc¬ 
olate pie with whipped cream in honor of 
Phyllis’ joining—why, Phyllis-child, what is 
it? ” Aunt Margaret had given Phyllis’ hand 
a loving squeeze, to which the burns didn’t take 
at all kindly. Phyllis was doing her best with 
a miserably-wet handkerchief when Jerry ap- 



128 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


peared on the scene. Jerry took one look at 
the handkerchief and produced a spotless, 
comfortably-large one of his own and offered 
it to her. “ How did you get such a pretty 
thing? ” 

Phyllis told him. 

“ Why didn’t Miss Jackson attend to it? ” 

“ I—I didn’t tell anybody.” 

“ And there are people who say girls can’t 
keep a secret! Don’t you know you ought to 
share interesting things, Phyl? I don’t know 
whether you deserve a Carnegie medal or a 
spanking for keeping this to yourself! So 
there were too many fingers in the pie? ” 
Phyllis shook her head. “No, too many 
cooks spilled the broth.” 

“ They seem to have done the job thor¬ 
oughly,” Jerry commented. “Well, it’s just 
the kind of night to have a nice, cosy evening 
at home. It almost feels like snow! ” 

Phyllis sat up straight. “ I’m going to 
school to-night to join the Camp Fire Girls.” 

Jerry smiled gently. It was lucky Phyllis 
had never been his patient before, or she might 
have been daunted by that smile. 


FIRE MAIDEN 


129 


“ You’re sure you want to go to-night? ” 

“ I said I’d be there,” said Phyllis, as if that 
settled the question. 

But, at quarter of eight, Phyllis wouldn’t 
have cared if the Hillcrest Camp Fire Girls 
had never met again, and when she stood in the 
now familiar hall with Joy and a few other 
day-pupils, her throat throbbing as much as 
her hand did, she wished she had yielded to the 
temptation to stay home. Dara, coming down¬ 
stairs in her ceremonial gown, looked at her 
with a slightly amused look in her black eyes. 
“ Well, Miss Phyl Lancy, are you going to 
slip into our merry little circle to-night? And 
are you scared? ” 

Dara saw the indescribable sudden lift of 
Phyllis’ chin, the lift she had nicknamed 44 the 
Lancy Tilt.” 44 No,” said Phyllis. 

44 Lucky Phyl! ” Dara laughed. 44 Oh, here’s 
Betty! You’re the other novitiate, aren’t you, 
Bettikins? Scared? ” 

Betty, whom Phyllis knew as the mischief- 
maker of the sophomore class, and who had 
looked anything but frightened the minute 
before, immediately drew her mouth into the 


130 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


most dismal droop, coaxed a fleeting look of 
fright into her eyes, and responded in the most 
melancholy of voices: “ Oh, I am—indeed, in¬ 
deed I am! Wh-what a-are you going to do 
with me, D-D-Dara? ” 

Dara put her arm through the shivering 
“ novitiate’s ” and giggled. “ Going to punish 
you for all your sins. Come along.” 

Phyllis went also, but she went with lagging 
feet. Why did she always have to say the 
wrong thing? Was Joy right? Had she 
begun too late? It did seem as if she’d never 
learn to behave as other girls did! 

But once within the little room set aside for 
the Camp Fire Girls, she began to forget—she 
liked the sight of these soft-footed, long-robed 
girls gathering about Miss Nita, and she felt a 
lump—but it was a happy one—in her throat 
as she watched the lighting of the three candles 
and listened to the repeating of the candle 
songs. To the others, it might be old, but 
Phyllis thought it was the most beautiful thing 
she had ever seen. And, as she stood listening 
to the girls’ voices repeating the fire-chant 
after Carol had lighted the bundle of wood in 





FIRE MAIDEN 


131 


the tiny fireplace, she wondered if it would 
ever sound old to her. 

44 Burn, fire, burn, 

Flicker, flicker, flame, 

Whose hand above this blaze is lifted 
Shall be with magic touch engifted 
To warm the hearts of lonely mortals-” 

Phyllis caught her breath. “ Shall be with 
magic touch engifted! ” 

44 Whoso shall stand by this hearthstone 
Flame fanned 

Shall never, never stand alone. 

Whose house is dark and bare and cold, 
Whose house is cold, 

This is his own. 

Flicker, flicker, flame, 

Burn, fire, burn.” 

It was then that Phyllis lighted a candle for 
herself, the candle of a great desire that she 
might possess the magic touch to “ warm the 
hearts of lonely mortals.” It wasn’t for her¬ 
self now, but surely there must be other people 
who were as lonely and diffident and proud as 
she was herself! If only she could find them, 



132 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


and then have the “ magic touch ” to warm 
their hearts when she did! Phyllis held out her 
hands to the fire in the half-darkness, and 
vowed that, when she did find them, they 
should have all the love and sympathy and 
understanding and help Phyllis Lancy had to 
give. 

“Well, did you like it?” Joyce asked as 
they snuggled together in the car on their way 
home. (Uncle Rob had come after them.) 

“Yes!” said Phyllis softly. Like it? 

“ You’ll have to choose a name, now,” Joyce 
pursued, “ something you’d like to be, you 
know.” 

Phyllis smiled into the darkness. 

“ Whose hand above this blaze is lifted 
Shall be with magic touch engifted 
To warm the hearts of lonely mortals-” 

“ I—I have chosen,” she said a little shyly. 

“ You have? ” Joy sat up. “ Why, it took 
me more than a month! I had an awful time! 
What is it? ” 

“ Fire Maiden.” 

“ Fire Maiden,” Joyce repeated, “ that’s— 




FIRE MAIDEN 


133 


not—bad, but why did you pick on that, 
Phyl? ” 

t 

“ Whose hand above this blaze is lifted-” 

Phyllis laughed. “ Oh, I like it, and, be¬ 
sides, don’t you think it’s rather appropriate 
just now? ” 




CHAPTER XI 


HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 

“ If,” announced Joyce pedantically, tum¬ 
bling her books down on the little porch table, 
“if I were the weather-man, I’d make it a 
Medes and Persians rule not to send hot 
weather during Examination Week! Sit 
down, Baby, I’ll go see if Mumsie’s got any¬ 
thing nice enough to make us forget those 
horrid old kings! ” 

“ I wish she was the weather-man! ” Baby 
sighed. Baby didn’t mind Examination Week 
or hot weather, if they came separately. It 
was the combination which disturbed her. “ I 
think it was horrid of summer to swoop down 
on us this week! Oh, Phyl, was 4 Bonnie 
Prince Charlie ’ Charles the Second, do you 
think? ” 

“ I—don’t think—so. Why? ” 

“ Well, I think I put him down that way in 

134 



HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 135 

my history exam, this afternoon, that's all. If 
he wasn’t, I’ll find out when it comes back.” 

“ I’m awfully afraid I mixed my Williams 
of Orange!” said Phyllis regretfully, “there 
were so many of them, and they all married 
Marys! ” 

“ Oh, you’re different,” was Baby’s careless 
rejoinder, “ you really like those awful crea¬ 
tures! Oh, hello, here’s Kits! Well, have 
you a nice cool spot around anywhere? ” 

Kits was quite unconcerned with the heat. 
Her little muslin dress was thin, her straight 
little legs bare. She didn’t bother to answer 
Baby’s question, but she wanted something 
herself. 

“ Don’t you want to come swfing, Phyl- 
wis? ” she invited. “ It’s perfectly lovely by 
the swfing! ” 

Baby groaned, but then, Kits hadn’t chosen 
to slip her cool little hand into Baby’s and 
smile at her as engagingly as she had at Phyl¬ 
lis. If she had, perhaps Baby would have 
found herself crossing the hot lawn to the 
swing, even though she had declared a minute 
before that she was going to sit still for a week. 


136 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Kits’ smile could be very engaging, if the occa¬ 
sion required it. 

And when Phyllis was in the swing under 
the cherry-tree at the edge of “ Jeremiah’s 
Pride,” the heat was forgotten. 

The swaying poppies, the lovely roses, the 
stately lilies didn’t object in the least to the 
surprise summer had given Parkview. Phyllis 
wondered if “ Jeremiah’s Pride ” could pos¬ 
sibly grow more beautiful than it was now, 
with the deep blue sky above it and the butter¬ 
flies fluttering about. And then she suddenly 
decided she would feel that way about it in the 
middle of winter! The garden seemed to be 

made that wav. 

%> 

Kits was waiting by the swing. “ Now, 
Phylwis! ” 

“ Ready? Hold tight! Go!” 

There was always something in the quick 
rush through the air that filled Phyllis with 
exultation. Higher, higher, the long swoop 
downward, then up again, up and up and up, 
Kits’ shrill screams of delight blending with 
the wind in her ears, on and on, the garden 
advancing—receding. 



HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 137 


“ Sing—Phylwis—please—sing the one the 
wind told you the ovver day! ” 

“ Swing—high! Swing—low! 

Away—we—go! 

First—fast! Then—slow! 

Over the green grass sea, 

Under—the—friendly—tree, 

Swing—we!” 

« 

It did seem almost as if the wind—or the 
swing—or the garden had sung that song to 
her the other day! And the music, too, if it 
was really music, for Phyllis had never made a 
song before, although her grandfather had in¬ 
sisted she study harmony as well as singing. 
But the other day when she and Kits had been 
swinging, and the sky had been so blue, and 
Kits’ golden head so close to hers, and the 

swing so much like a magic ship- Lower 

now, slower, more slow, coming to a panting, 
breathless stop at the edge of the hot beautiful 
garden with the silence broken only by the 
sounds of the locusts. 

“ Let’s—let’s do it right over again! ” cried 
Kits. 











138 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Please wait—wait till I’ve got breath— 
enough! ” Phyllis panted. 

“ Yes, now you’re hotter than you were 
before,” said Joyce discouragingly. “ Didn’t 
you know we were here? ” as Phyllis jumped. 

“ Baby wanted a rose, so- Flying’s all 

very well, I suppose, but when you stop—and 
how you can swing like that and sing at the 
same time—where’d you get that ‘ green grass 
sea ’ thing anyhow? ” 

“ The wind told it to her the ovver day! ” 
Kits cried proudly. “ Don’t you just love it, 
Joy? ” 

“The wind told-” Joyce began, while 

the color flamed into her cousin’s cheeks. Then 
she made a low curtsey. “ Phyl, I told you 
you must be a poet! But—Baby, how do you 
treat poets? I never had one in the family 
before, and I don’t know how to act! ” 

“She knows anover one!” Kits informed 
them, 

“ The wind blowef them, each white-cloud 
boat-” 


Phyllis gave a vigorous push with her slip- 







HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 139 


pered toe. “ Hold fast, Kits! ” She took her 
hand off the rope long enough to wave it to the 
other two girls, and then bent her energies on 
giving Kits the longest and highest swing that 
insatiable young lady had ever had. 

When they finally let the swing sway idly 
on a gently-moving rope the sun was lower, 
sending long, dark shadows across the garden, 
and shining deep into the peonies’ hearts. 
Phyllis envied the peonies. They looked so 
cool, and sweet: the soft, exquisite pink ones, 
with their tiny, white, curling centers, and the 
great velvety red ones, and the fragrant white 
ones, as they stood between the fleurs-de-lis 
and the big and little rose-bushes; and the 
hollyhocks looked as if they were tall old 
towers with a fair princess looking down from 
each window at the pansy velvet carpet. 

“ I like Jerwy’s pansies,” announced Kits 
suddenly; “ they’s got little faces.” 

“Why!” cried Phyllis, surprised at the 
child’s fancy, “ I know a song—but I found 
this one in a hook,—please be sure and remem¬ 
ber that , Kits!—that says that! Listen! ” 

Phyllis’ voice rose clear and soft and sweet 



140 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


on the quiet garden air. Even Madame Felori 
had never heard her sing as she sang the simple 
verses now. 

“ Dear little faces, 

Sober or gay, 

Speak to my loved one far away, 

Speak to my loved one far away, 

Bid her think of me.” 

Baby was gone when Phyllis returned to the 
house, and Aunt Margaret was laying the 
little wicker table out on the secluded porch. 
“ It’s hot inside,” she explained to Phyllis, 
“ and I love an excuse to eat out here! Joy, 
would you mind getting the green bowl from 
the bookcase and cutting some flowers for it? ” 

“ Jerry anywhere around? ” Joyce inquired 
cautiously. “ Ever since that tulip affair—all 
right, I’ll go.” 

Phyllis watched her cousin as she deftly ar¬ 
ranged the lilies-of-the-valley and the sweet 
peas, snipping a too-long stem here and an ob¬ 
streperous leaf there. Joyce was handling the 
flowers as Phyllis had seen her grandfather 
handling her crayons when she was little. He 


HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 141 


said that several of the Lancys had been 
promising artists, and he had tried to teach 
Phyllis’ fingers to follow their example, but 
Phyllis’ fingers had been disappointingly 
clumsy. But Joy’s might not be! Joy might 
be able to make a paint brush behave as it 
ought! Phyllis didn’t know why she had never 
noticed it before, but somehow they looked as 
if they could. And she remembered that Joy 
had done the green room! 

“ Joy,” she said suddenly, “ do you ever 
paint? ” 

Joyce almost looked a little startled. 

“ Well, I believe I did paint a chair once, 
when I was little. Jerry was painting the roof 
of a hut the boys had, and he forgot to put the 
pail and brush away. The family didn’t ap¬ 
preciate the work of art, though. They didn’t 
preserve it. Oh, yes, I did the things in your 
room.” 

Phyllis laughed. “ No, I mean, really paint: 
pictures.” 

“ Why-” but Phyllis thought her cheeks 

were pink, “ most of our pictures are painted 
already.” 



142 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Once Phyllis’ suspicions were aroused, they 
were not so easily allayed. She remembered 
the papers Joyce had so unceremoniously 
snatched up from the library table when Phyl¬ 
lis had accidentally moved some books a few 
days before, and she remembered the little 
water-color pictures of Hillcrest hanging in 
Aunt Margaret’s room, and there was some¬ 
thing else- “But you’re in Miss Mar- 

stead’s art class, aren’t you? ” 

“ Oh, yes. Lady Elizabeth makes you take 
either that or music, and drawing isn’t as noisy 
as music is.” 

Phyllis tried to ignore this shot. “ Won’t 
you show me some of your pictures? ” 

“ Oh, yes. I’ve got heaps of snapshots 
somewhere around that you haven’t seen.” 

Phyllis had a struggle with herself and 
laughter. Asking Joyce questions was like 
firing a toy gun at Hillcrest’s stone boundary 
wall! 

“ Week of Torture nearly over? ” Jerry 
asked as he slipped into his seat. 

“ Yes. My head’s a merry-go-round, I 
think, and I’m perfectly sure I said Peter the 



HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 143 


Great was King of Patagonia, and that the 
cube root was something that belonged to the 
ancient Romans. But it’s over now, and to¬ 
morrow Miss Nita’s going to take the girls who 
are lucky enough to belong to her Camp Fire 
for a hike up High Hill. Is it going to be any 
cooler, Weather Prophet? ” 

“ I think it is. I think we’ll have a storm 
either to-night or to-morrow.” 

“ Oh no! ” Joyce wailed, clasping the sugar- 
bowl tightly to her. “Oh no! That would 
spoil it. Please don’t say it’s going to rain 
until to-morrow night, Jerry! ” 

“ Anything to oblige. 4 It isn’t going to 
rain until to-morrow night.’ Don’t spill all 
the sugar, Joy. I’d like a teaspoonful.” 

“ It mustn't rain! ” Joyce chattered over the 
dishes. “It—it mustn’t! High Hill is the 
awfullest thing to climb anyway, and if it rains 
—we’ve worked hard enough to deserve a cel¬ 
ebration! ” 

Phyllis agreed with her. Cuddled in a cor¬ 
ner of the gently-swinging porch hammock, 
when Joyce had gone down-town to match a 
spool of silk her mother needed, Phyllis 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


144 

thought over the past week. It wasn’t exactly 
what you could call an easy one. Baby was 
right. Summer had “ swooped ” down upon 
Parkview that year, bringing with it dry, 
burning days, not followed by cooling nights, 
but nights of intense, almost suffocating heat. 
Phyllis leaned her head wearily against the 
hammock-side. She was tired. Summer never 
was a favorite season with Phyllis, but she 
had never before known the joys of wondering 
if you had passed an examination you had 
taken, when your mind was in a wild muddle 
from a furious headache. Phyllis had nearly 
reached the merry-go-round stage herself. 
But, this afternoon,—Phyllis laughed softly at 
the memory. 

The girls—there were plenty of them at 
Hillcrest, but Phyllis always thought of Joyce 
and Emmie and Baby and Francie and Dara 
as “ the girls ”—had gathered gratefully, when 
classes and examinations were over, under 
what Emmie paraphrased as “ the spreading 
willow-tree ” beside the brook, to express their 
opinions of the weather, Lady Elizabeth, and 
examinations. 



HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 145 


“ I don’t see,” complained Emmie, “ why 
exams, can’t be held in the fall! ” 

44 Autumn, Emmie dear.” 

“ Harvest season, child.” 

44 The crown of the year, Miss Batton, but 
never, never 4 Fall! ’ ” 

Emmie preserved her dignity. “You sound 
like Miss Lyton,” she said, “ and 4 quotation 
confesses inferiority,’ she says so herself.” 

Dara looked troubled. 44 Girls,” she asked 
solemnly, 44 do you suppose it’s the heat? 
Emmie’s actually got a quotation right! ” 

44 Given it correctly,” Emmie suggested 
meditatively. 

44 It might be,” agreed Francie, 44 it might 
be responsible for anything. I can’t think 
what else would make Dara look so worried, or 
Phyl Lancy chew a pencil nearly in two.” 

44 That’s stage-fright,” Joyce had contrib¬ 
uted. 44 She’s scared she’ll fail in things. It 
would be awful, too; she’s got the Lancy 
Honor to uphold, you know.” 

44 You needn’t worry,” Baby advised Phyl¬ 
lis, 44 it doesn’t hurt, really.” 

44 Phyl hasn’t had your experience in flunk- 


146 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


ing, Baby,” Dara said pleasantly; “ it must 
take a little practice to flunk gracefully.” 

“I wish you hadn’t said that!” groaned 
Francie. “ I was trying to forget it! I’ve got 
to go and do it. Anybody coming along to 
help me? ” 

“ What? Flunk?” 

“ No, child, I can do it easier alone.” 

“ Do you really need help to do that, 
Francie? ” 

Francie glared at them. “ You’re not being 
funny. I mean, will any of you come over to 
the tennis-court and help me practise for that 
Hillcrest-Steadman game? ” 

Joyce sank back into the tree; Baby leaned 
her head against it; Dara made herself more 
comfortable in the grass. 

“ Don’t all offer at once, please.” 

“ We won’t, honey.” 

Francie surveyed them as coldly as the 
weather permitted. “ Would you like me to 
win that game? ” 

“ Certainly! We want you to win it, of 
course! ” 

“ I’ll play—if you’ll have me,—Francie.” 


HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 147 

t 

Dara said “ Ouch!” as she bumped her head 
in her efforts to see the hesitating Phyllis who 
had risen to the emergency. She said after¬ 
ward it was worth the bump to see Francie’s 
face. 

“ Why—Phyl—you needn’t bother. It 
doesn’t matter.” 

“ Of course, I know I can’t really play, not 
like you and Dara, but I do know a little about 
it, and if you really want to practise-” 

Francie caught the signal in Dara’s eyes. 
“ Well, at least you’re not a slacker.” 

Phyllis’ knees trembled suddenly, as she 
selected her racquet and took her place oppo¬ 
site Francie. Francie was Hillcrest’s cham¬ 
pion, and she—oh, she had been silly to offer! 
But—Francie was waiting. Phyllis’ head 
moved ever so slightly. Her wrist gave the 
peculiar turn Mrs. Saunders had taught her. 
Francie leaped. The ball danced back towards 
Phyllis. Phyllis, to her disgust, missed it. 
Perhaps that was because, just then, out of the 
corner of her eye, she saw three figures 
stealthily crossing the campus. At any rate, 
although Francie won the set, Phyllis gave her 





148 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


a few surprises. Francie might be quick, but 
Phyllis had a steady wrist and some puzzling 
strokes, and the three spectators discovered she 
wasn’t afraid to run. 

“ Who taught you, Phyl? ” Francie de¬ 
manded as they dropped wearily under the 
willow-tree’s shade at last. “ Oh! This be¬ 
ing a school champion isn’t any fun! Want 
to try it, Phyl? ” 

Phyllis laughed. She was tired, but her 
eyes were happy. “ I’ll leave that to you for 
a year or two,” she said. 

“ But I thought Joy said you couldn’t play 
at all! ” 

“ Mrs. Saunders taught me. I—I didn’t 
like to ask you to bother.” 

“Mrs. Saunders!” 

“ Mrs. Saunders! Phyllis Lancy, you lucky 
thing, do you know she was the champion of 
this State for two years? No wonder you play 
so well! My dear Miss Lancy, I’ll play with 
you again! ” 

And Phyllis, half-asleep in the Lancy ham¬ 
mock, smiled hazily. “ I mustn’t forget. It’s 
too late to do it to-night, but I’ll do it to- 



HILLCREST HAS A SURPRISE 149 

morrow.” Which didn’t refer to playing 
tennis with Francie Lang. 

Phyllis was at her desk the next morning 
when Joyce popped her head in the door. 
“ What’s the matter? ” she demanded. “You 
jumped. I saw you! You’d better hurry. 
Miss Nita wants us at school at ten, you know, 
and the sandwiches aren’t finished.” 

“ I’ll be down,” Phyllis promised, “ but I 
want to finish a letter first.” 

She looked down at the sheet of paper her 
hand had been covering. If Joyce had seen 
that address, what would she have said? 

“ Chairman of the Campaign for Improving 
Phyllis Lancy, 

Dear Madam-” 

Phyllis giggled. “ It would have been in¬ 
teresting,” she said, as she took up her pen. 

“ Dear Madam: 

“ I beg to submit the following report 
to you, as Chairman of the Campaign for Im¬ 
proving Phyllis Lancy. She has learned 
tennis. 


“ P. S. L.” 



150 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Having written the final flourish of the “ L,” 
she deposited the “ letter ” in a businesslike 
envelope at the bottom of her drawer. Joyce’s 
comments might be interesting, but- 



CHAPTER XII 


“ THY THUNDER SHOWERS! ” 

The thermometer showed no inclination to 
drop, but Jerry’s storm was nowhere in sight. 
The sky was a soft blue, right down to what 
Joyce called “its edges,” and even Miss 
Farendale looked up at it contentedly. 

“ It’s hot, of course, but the road is mostly 
shady, and it’s always lovely up on High 
Hill,” she confided to Phyllis. “ Here’s your 
stock. Oh, you’ll need it when we come to 
the hill! ” 

Phyllis obediently took the long, slender, 
sturdy “ stock ” and set off in company with 
Emmie and Lucy. The sun was hot, but the 
grumbles Phyllis heard were cheerful ones. 
It was hard to believe that she, Phyllis Lancy, 
who had sat in her sheltered room wistfully 
wondering about other girls and what they 
did, was actuallv one of these khaki-middied 
and knickered girls, with their knapsacks of 

151 


152 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

lunch on their hacks, their guiding “ alpen¬ 
stocks ” in their hands, swinging along High 
Hill road with such an even, untiring gait! 
It didn't seem possible! 

The road that had been broad at first nar¬ 
rowed, and had sharp turnings here and there. 
It was bordered by tall swaying grasses and, 
sometimes, Phyllis caught sight of an unusual 
bird which seemed to be singing either a wel¬ 
come to the strangers invading his territory, 
or a signal of warning to his friends. High 
Hill itself began to rise very gradually, almost 
invitingly, at first, but Phyllis discovered that, 
if it was an invitation, High Hill changed its 
mind rather suddenly. High Hill might be 
only a hill, but it wasn’t easy to climb! The 
path lay over stony places, by twisted paths, 
past bushes that caught at your clothes and 
hair, sometimes down, sometimes up, always 
bewildering, as if High Hill were saying: 
“You may be going to climb me, but you 
sha’n’t say I gave you any encouragement! 
Do you want to go back? ” 

Phyllis did not want to go back, but she was 
slightly bewildered. She stood still to tie 


“THY THUNDER SHOWERS!” 153 

the lace of her shoe and pick the wild black¬ 
berry-vine out of her hair, and watched the 
rest go scrambling over the wall of boughs and 
bushes sent across the path by the fiercest of 
the winter’s storms. 

She didn’t blame Emmie and Lucy for not 
missing her when she dropped behind—they 
had all they could do to take care of them¬ 
selves, and the rest had been too busy to notice 
her absence. 

“ Stuck? ” 

The voice was so sudden that it almost made 
Phyllis lose a precarious balance. “ Oh! ” she 
said faintly. 

“ Scare you? I’m sorry,” Dara apologized. 
“ Miss Nita sent me back as a sort of guardian 
for your Lancyness, since you don’t know all 
the pretty little ways High Hill has. Are you 
stuck over there? ” 

Now Phyllis had been very nearly ready to 
confess herself—well, stalled—a minute be¬ 
fore, but the second Hara asked the question 
something within her refused to be stalled, al¬ 
though she had a sickening sensation when she 
looked either up or down! 





154 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Here, this is the way. You’re all right.” 
Phyllis stood still. Then she laughed. 
She admitted to herself it sounded a trifle 
queer, but it was a laugh, and she shook her 
head at Dara’s proffered hand. 

“ No, thank you, Dara. It’s fun! If I’m 
going to learn all High Hill’s 4 pretty little 
ways,’ I can’t begin any sooner! Did the rest 
of you have guides? Well, I’m one of you! 
If Miss Nita said so, you’ll have to watch me, 
but I’ll try not to get into mischief! ” 

44 If you fall into one of these bushes, you’ll 
think you’ve gotten into mischief! ” 

44 Well, then I’ll get out again!” Phyllis 
giggled. It really was funny, she was so 
scared about doing a thing the others hadn’t 
minded at all. Perhaps it would have been 
wise to have accepted Dara’s help—Phyllis 
set her teeth. No, sir! She was going to 
see this thing through , and she was going to 
do it alone! She stepped from her com¬ 
paratively safe footing, down, down, down. 
Then she scrambled up. Up and down, 
down and up, past the barricade of boughs, 
where you had to test each stepping-place 


“THY THUNDER SHOWERS!” 


155 


carefully, over rocky places, where you turned 
corners with breath-taking abruptness, under 
arches so low you had to bend your head, Phyl¬ 
lis climbed, conscious of Dara’s own sure feet 
beside her and Dara’s cool eyes upon her. 
They didn’t talk—nobody considers High Hill 
a place for conversation, but Phyllis knew 
Dara had seen how very frightened she had 
been at first, and tried desperately to be uncon¬ 
cerned over the matter. Once she did fall, and 
meekly submitted to Dara’s helping hand. 
But oh, she had never even dreamed there was 
a place in the whole world that was so utterly 
lovely. The wonderful trees, lifting their arms 
high above her head, the sweet-smelling pine 
needles under her feet, the lovely flowers here 

and there, the rocks- It made her feel 

for a few minutes as if she could just fling out 
her arms and love everybody in the world. 

It seemed to her finally, however, that they 
had spent fully half a day following the others’ 
trail, but it really was less than an hour before 
she and Dara caught up to them in a little 
clearing, making preparations for a camp 
luncheon, the fragrance of which turned the 



156 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


already hungry Phyllis into something very 
ravenous. 

“ Are you really Phyllis Lancy? ” asked 
Baby from a comfortable stone. “ You don’t 

look like her! You look- Joy! Come here 

and tell us what Phyl looks like! You’re good 
at description.” 

Phyllis sank to the ground, too tired to care 
what her looks were, but Joyce was obliging. 

“ You look as though you’d been making 
mud-pies with Kits,” she said concisely. 

To any one who knew Kits and her mud- 
pies, the description was adequate. 

“ Phyl is in a position to sing an ode to High 
Hill,” observed Dara, strolling up. “ ‘ I love 
thy rocks and rills, Thy woods-’ ” 

“ I am not!” contradicted Phyllis. “ I 
haven’t breath enough to sing one line, but— 
your High Hill is worth it! ” 

“ And this isn’t the top! ” Carol turned from 
the contents of her knapsack to call. “ It’s the 
most gorgeous place I know! You can 
actually see over into three States from there! 
Wait until you get there this afternoon! It’s 
a perfectly awful climb, but-” 





“THY THUNDER SHOWERS!” 


157 


Phyllis was iDerfectly content to wait. She 
would have been quite satisfied to do that one 
thing all day, but having knelt to wash her 
face and hands at a cold little brook, and eaten, 
she rose when the rest did, and accepted Dara’s 
guidance. She had caught a glimpse of her¬ 
self in the brook, and wondered if, had they 
seen her, Miss Patterson or her grandfather 
would have recognized her! She grinned. She 
certainly didn’t look like the Phyllis Lancy 
they knew! 

That last mile was the hardest. Stones 
turned under Phyllis’ feet, she missed protect¬ 
ing boughs, or they swept across her face; more 
than once, if it hadn’t been for Dara’s quick 
hand, she would have fallen, but when she did 
finally stand at the broad summit, with its two 
tall sentinel pines and carpet of mosses, and 
the little 44 Mountain House ” just showing 
through the trees, she knew Carol had been 
right. High Hill repaid with interest those 
who had the courage to know its beauty! And 
it did deserve an Ode, but oh, she couldn’t 
write it! 

44 And Mountain House is over there,” Dara 


158 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


interrupted her thoughts. “ It’s got a mirror, 
or it did have when I was up here before. You 
might be interested in it, Phyl.” 

“ How did it happen to be built up here? ” 
Phyllis, her dreams dispelled, was curious. 

“ Mr. McKensie had it built for Hillcrest 
girls. He thought it would teach us to 
climb.” Dara grinned. “ It did. And it’s 
quite complete. It even has a medicine-chest 
and a work-basket. Don’t you want to see 
it?” 

Phyllis laughed out. “ Especially the work- 
basket and the mirror? I want to see it all! 

It took longer to render first aid to Phyl¬ 
lis’ clothes than she had thought it would, 
and, before they were finished, Baby was 
standing in the door. “ Hear anything? ” 

There was an odd little note in her voice. 

“ Look at the sky! ” 

The sky did look odd. Great, heavy, low 
clouds seemed to be surging over it. The clouds 
were almost blue, a strange, ugly blue, mixed 
with grey and tinged with purple, with a queer 
orange light through them. There was a low, 
half-whistling sound, but it didn’t exactly 


“THY THUNDER SHOWERS!” 159 

sound like wind. It didn’t sound, in fact, like 
anything. 

“ Miss Nita says there’s going to be a 
storm.” 

“ No! ” Dara was trying to sound sarcastic. 
“ I am surprised! Does she really think so? 

It doesn’t look-” she broke off to gasp as 

a line of flame shot through the clouds, “ look 
it. But if she says so, it really must be so. 
She knows!” 

Dara knew, too. The whistling sound was 
plainer now, and the clouds nearer. The 
others were hurrying towards the little Moun¬ 
tain House, and they looked anything but joy¬ 
ful! 

“ It’s because we’ve never seen them from 
High Hill before,” Miss Nita was explaining. 
“Nice Mr. McKensie, to build us Mountain 
House! Otherwise, we’d be like the ‘poor 
Babes in the Woods! ’ Squeeze in, girls! ” 

“ It—it wasn’t fair of it to be so—so 
s-s-sudden!” chattered Joyce as a menacing 
roll of thunder broke over their heads. “ It— 
it might have been g-gentlemanly enough to 
give us s-s-some warning! Ow! ” She seized 






160 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


the nearest thing to her, which happened to be 
Francie’s knees. The combination of a bril¬ 
liant flash of lightning and Joyce’s sudden 
grasp upset Francie’s nerves. She screamed. 

“ Oh, come, come! ” Miss Nita spoke sooth¬ 
ingly, “you’re not hurt, Francie, nor Joy 
either. We’ll laugh over this in an hour.” 

“ I—I wish that hour was now! 33 wailed 
Baby. “ I—I don’t think I like High Hill in 
storms! ” 

“ I know I don’t! ” Joyce gasped from be¬ 
tween Francie’s knees. “ Oh-oh! Listen ! 33 

“ We’re listening,” Dara assured her grimly. 

“ It—it was a surprise,” Carol was holding 
her hands tightly together, and the soft hint 
of laughter was missing from her voice. 

“ There were too many trees in the way for 
us to see it coming,” Miss Nita explained. 
“ People in Parkview must have seen it half 
an hour before we did.” 

“ I wish I had seen it from there! ” mumbled 
Joyce. “ I—I wish I were there now ! 33 

“ Oh, well, you may be, in a few minutes,” 
Dara offered consolingly. “ I wouldn’t be 
surprised if we blew down.” 



“THY THUNDER SHOWERS ! 99 161 

It was Baby who shrieked this time. “ Be 
still, girls!” Miss Nita had to shout above 
the storm. “ We’re all right. Think how 
many storms Mountain House has seen! 
Why, we’re having an adventure! To-morrow 
we’ll be proud of ourselves! Can’t we—can’t 
we do something to make us forget it? Can’t 
we sing? ” 

« 

Phyllis wondered how any one could make 
a song heard above the angry roar of the 
thunder that followed upon the quick flares of 
orange lightning, or the steadily rising gale 
which swept the blinding rain against the little 
windows in such savage gusts. She could 
never remember a storm like this, and even a 
little thunder-shower could terrify her! Just 
now her hands were clenched so hard together 
that they hurt. Sing? With Joyce huddled 
on the floor with her head in Francie’s lap; with 
Baby perched on the little old-fashioned 
bureau, her hand clutching Miss Nita’s shoul¬ 
der; with Carol’s eyes wide in her white face; 
and Dara trying to check a scream as some¬ 
thing went tearing and crashing through the 
air? 



162 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

“ We’re struck! ” went up a wail. “ Oh, 
Miss Nita! We’re struck! ” 

“A tree!” Miss Nita lifted her voice to 
answer, “ only a tree! ” She laughed. “ Only 
yesterday Dara was wishing for a chance to be 
a heroine! Come, girls, do something! Sing! 
Sing hard! Let’s begin with ‘Hail, Colum¬ 
bia! ’ That’s quite a loud one! ” 

She began it, and, after a second, Phyl¬ 
lis heard her own voice, queer and waver¬ 
ing, take it up. She was still frightened—her 
knuckles were growing white and her breath 
gave out in unexpected places, but Miss Nita 
had asked them to sing, and singing was one 
thing Phyllis could do well, even though hill¬ 
climbing wasn’t. Phyllis didn’t like to think 
of that downward trail! 

One by one, the other girls followed her 
example. Afterward, they couldn’t remem¬ 
ber everything they had sung there in the half¬ 
dark, but suddenly Dara missed Phyllis’ clear 
voice, and turned towards her questioningly. 
“ What’s the matter? ” 

“I was wondering-” Phyllis chuckled. 

“Miss Nita! I’ve got a new song! Listen!” 




“THY THUNDER SHOWERS!” 163 

It wasn’t a remarkable song, but with the 
stormy accompaniment it was effective and 
astonishing in its results. 

“ Oh, beau-ti-ful for thun-der showers, 

For fierce tor-rents of rain, 

For am-ber wave of light-ning, 

For thun-der-ing re-frain! 

Oh, High Hill dear! Oh, High Hill dear! 

I love thy rock-y bowers, 

Each rock and rill that make me spill, 

But most thy thun-der showers! ” 

“ Phyl Lancy! ” 

“ Did you make that up yourself? " 

“ That’s cute !” 

“Let’s sing it! How does it go? ‘Oh, 
beautiful for thunder showers ’—you’re right! 

•—‘ For amber wave-’ ” 

“ That’s wrong. The rain comes next. 
Sing it again, Phyl.” 

So Phyllis sang it again and then again. 
The girls joined her the third time, and Phyllis 
had the strange sensation of hearing Hill- 
crest’s girls sing and shout a song of hers un¬ 
til they were almost too hoarse to do much 
more than hum it. 



164 


THE 44 ICICLE ” MELTS 


44 Oh, beautiful for thunder showers, 

For fierce torrents of rain, 

For amber wave of lightning-” 

“It isn’t,” Miss Nita broke in suddenly; 
“ it’s beautiful for clearing skies just now. 
Come out and see.” 

There was a stampede for the door. 
“ O-ouclfi!” exclaimed Joyce, gingerly with¬ 
drawing a hastily implanted foot, “ it’s 
w-wet! ” 

“Never mind the w-wet!” Dara pushed 
past her. 

The storm had passed. The threatening 
thunder-clouds were smoothed out into a grey 
veil lined with darker grey at one side of the 
sky, and out towards the west spread a clear 
sky of no especial color, only a clear bright¬ 
ness which filled the heavens and touched the 
wet grass and rocks with a wonderful light. 

“ I’d—I’d like to paint that,” Carol said 
softly. 

“ Why don’t you? ” asked Francie. “ 4 After 
the Storm ’ or 4 Storm Clouds on High Hill * 


or 




“THY THUNDER SHOWERS!” 165 

Carol shook her head. “ It’s a Glory that 
has no name, but I wish—I was wise enough 
to do it just the same! ” 

If ascending High Hill was a test to require 
skill, descending, even three hours after the 
storm, was an adventure! There were other 
trees down, now, lying, Joyce complained, 
“ like an Octopus ” across the twisting paths; 
houghs and bushes shook their full share of 
rain on the unlucky passer-by; stones were 
slippery. More than once Phyllis was glad 
of Dara’s sure footing and strong hands. 

“ Is climbing—mountains—a Camp Fire 
test? ” she panted ruefully. “ If it is, I don’t 
believe I’ll ever pass it! ” 

“ You’ve passed one test to-day,” said Dara 
shortly, guiding her around a tree disobliging 
enough to stand squarely in the center of the 
trail, “ what more do you want? ” 

“ Did I?” 

Dara threw her an almost disgusted look. 

“ Oh, beautiful for thunder showers, 

For fierce torrents of rain-” 


chanted Baby behind them. 




166 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ I love thy rocky bowers, 

Each rock and rill that make me spill-” 

Francie took it up. 

And Lady Elizabeth, who had been anxious 
enough to drive to the foot of High Hill, heard 
her pupils come crashing through the wet 
branches singing: 

“ Oh, beautiful for thunder showers, 

For fierce tor-rents of rain, 

For am-ber wave of light-ning, 

For thun-der-ing re-frain! 

Oh, High Hill dear! Oh, High Hill dear! 

I love thy rock-y bowers, 

Each rock and rill that make me spill, 

But most thy thun-der showers ! 99 



CHAPTER XIII 


AFTER VACATION 

Phyllis spent most of the summer with her 
grandfather. She expected to be glad to be 
freed from the “ girls’ ” half-tantalizing com¬ 
pany, and was surprised to find that she missed 
them; and wondered more and more what they 
were doing, and eagerly read and re-read Joy’s 
few-and-far-between letters—another person 
might not have called the scraps of notes Joyce 
sent “ letters.” Carol Avas staying on at Hill- 
crest during July. Some one in her family had 
scarlet fever. And Kits and Comfie had been 
in mischief as usual, a really disgraceful piece 
of Avork this time. She was on the Lancy 
porch noAV, Avaiting for a SAving. Well, she 
Avasn’t going to get it! 

That particular mail had brought two en¬ 
velopes from Joyce. Phyllis stared at the 
second one in surprise before she opened it. 

Then she understood: 

167 


168 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Dear Filis:” said the straggling little writ¬ 
ing, 

“ How are you? I want you to come 
and swing me! Have a good time. Comfie 
feels better. Do you love me? I love you. 

“ Kits.” 

If any one had happened to see that letter 
afterward, they would have found a tiny blister 
in the middle of it. It was very odd, but Phyl¬ 
lis was homesick! Homesick for the place 
where she had been so miserable! But even 
then she was surprised to find how very good 
it was to see Aunt Margaret again when, in 
late August, she came to do some shopping and 
take Phyllis back to Parkview. Phyllis had 
been restless that morning, and then she heard 
Aunt Margaret’s voice in the hall. The next 
minute, astonished Mr. Lancy beheld a slen¬ 
der figure flying down the stairs and inter¬ 
rupting his half-finished greetings: 

“ Aunt Margaret! Aunt Margaret! Are 
you really here? Oh, I’m so glad to see you! 
I didn’t know you were coming until day- 
after-to-morrow! Aunt Margaret-” 



AFTER VACATION 


169 


“ Phyllis! ” Mr. Lancy’s voice was de¬ 
cidedly surprised, but Aunt Margaret only 
laughed and held Phyllis closer. 

“ We’ve missed each other, haven’t we? 
Are you really glad to see me? ” 

“ Glad? JJ Phyllis’ vocabulary failed her. 
Aunt Margaret said she had missed her! 

Phyllis hadn’t thought, the winter before, 
that shopping-trips could be nicer than the 
ones she had taken with Miss Patterson, but 
she hadn’t known the joys of accompanying 
Aunt Margaret then! Aunt Margaret made 
a game of it, stopping to look at shiny buckles 
and silvery ribbons and dainty collars, and 
books. And Phyllis was discovering that you 
didn’t have to buy things to enjoy them! 

“ We’ll go up and look at dresses for Joy, 
now,” Aunt Margaret confided as they turned 
towards the elevator. “ We’ll get her two, I 
think. I’ll choose one, and you’ll choose one— 
you’ve got pretty good taste, I’ve noticed, and 
you know what Joy likes. I’ve got a picture 
in my mind of the one Pm going to get; I 
don’t know what it’s like ”—Aunt Margaret 
laughed at herself, “ but I’ll know it when I 



170 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


see it, and you’ll have to watch out, or she’ll 
like mine better! ” 

Aunt Margaret did know. It was only a 
little dress, soft blue, combined with dull gold 
and rose, but Phyllis had to acknowledge that 
she would have to choose carefully' if she 
wanted her dress worn at all! And there were 
so many dresses! Phyllis was nearly in de¬ 
spair when she caught sight of the dress. It 
was the green of Phyllis’ room at home—al¬ 
ready Phyllis was beginning to think of Park- 
view as “ home,” and it was such a simple 
little dress that, unless you had been looking 
for it especially, it might easily have hidden it¬ 
self among gayer dresses. Aunt Margaret’s 
eyes twinkled. 

“ You’ve got ahead of me, Phyllis! Joy 
adores green: it’s I who like blue! Now there’s 
one more thing I want to get to-day, if you’re 
not tired. Something with all the rainbow 
colors in it.” 

Phyllis suddenly remembered the day she 
had watched Jovce arrange the flowers when 
she saw the “ something with all the rainbow 
colors in it.” Aunt Margaret stood by the 



AFTER VACATION 


171 


students’ color-boxes a long time. Phyllis 
caught her breath. Those black boxes were 
wonderful things. They made Phyllis feel 
certain she could paint, although she knew 
perfectly well that she couldn’t! They re¬ 
minded her of the days when she was a little 
girl and had been allowed to look at her grand¬ 
father’s big black box with its rows of little 
tubes and many brushes. She could still re¬ 
member how wonderful and mysterious that 
box had been, and even these were very tempt¬ 
ing. 

“ Is it for Joy? Does she really paint? ” 

Aunt Margaret nodded. “ Yes. Did she 
tell you? It’s the one thing she doesn’t like to 
talk about usually, but Miss Marstead told me 
in June that, if she could be persuaded to work 
a little harder—and there’s to be a Student’s 
Exhibition at Hillcrest this winter. I’m hop¬ 
ing—that’s why I want to get a good box. It 
mustn’t be too elaborate, but it mustn’t be too 
small, either.” She laughed again. “ I want 
it to be just right! Do you suppose this one 
is just right? ” 

“ You haven’t told me a single thing about 



172 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Joy or Kits or any of the girls! ” Phyllis com¬ 
plained, when they were settled in the Lancy 
car with their packages. 

Aunt Margaret laughed. “I? Why, that’s 
Joy’s business! What would she say if I 
told you all the news? No, you must wait un¬ 
til you get to Parkview for it! ” 

Phyllis gave a little impatient bounce. 
Aunt Margaret could be just as provoking as 
Joy or Jerry, sometimes! 

But even after that, she was wholly sur¬ 
prised to find that the wheels of the train that 
finally carried her to Parkview were singing: 
“ You’re going home! You’re going—home! 
You’re—going—ho-o-me! ” 

And when she actually saw Joyce on the 
Parkview platform, she realized that she 
had been homesick for her cousin’s teasing 
tongue! 

It was she who made the advances this time. 
She ran down the platform to meet Uncle Rob 
and Joy. “ PIullo! I’m so glad to be bark! 
—Oh, where is Aunt Margaret? I—I forgot 
her!” 

“She’s not lost!” Uncle Rob’s eves 





AFTER VACATION 


173 


twinkled as he took Aunt Margaret’s pack¬ 
ages. “ Come along, children.” 

Phyllis snuggled down into the comfortable 
little car. It wasn’t as handsome as her 
grandfather’s impressive automobile, but 
somehow Phyllis had never wanted to snuggle 
down in that! But even the shabby little 
places looked comfortable here! 

“ How is Kits? It was lovely of you to 
have her write that letter, Joy! But what was 
the thing you said was 4 really disgraceful ’? ” 

“ It was! We went down to Golden Sands 
for two weeks, you know,—the Saunders and 
Mumsie and I, and one morning Kits got 
soaked. It was dreadfully hot, so Mrs. Saun¬ 
ders put her sweater around Kits and let her 
stay—I was making a sand-castle. Well, the 
tide turns awfully quick down there, and all of 
a sudden there came a wave—you never saw 
anything like it in your life! You ought to 
have seen people run! And when we turned 
to look back, there w T as Kits surveying the 
ocean as serenely as if she’d been properly 
dressed, with her sweater—which was all she’d 
had, going along with the wave! Oh, Kits has 





174 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


been busy this summer! She walked through 
the fresh tarvia on the road with her bare feet, 
because she thought it looked cool, and she 
hadn’t been home from Golden Sands more 
than a week when she and that precious Comfie 
got into a fight! You remember Bobby Arm¬ 
strong and his dog? Well, he and Ted Ross 
were teasing Comfie with Prince, and Kits 
came flying! You ought to have seen her! 
She doubled up her fists and hit! And acci¬ 
dentally she got a black eye, and Comfie had a 
hole chewed in his neck!” Joyce shuddered. 
“Ugh! They certainly were sights! Mr. 
Saunders said he would shoot him-” 

“Which him?” inquired Phyllis. “Billy, 
or Prince, or-” 

“ Comfie, of course! You could have heard 
Kits howl for a block. 4 No, no, no! Daddy 
shouldn’t shoot him! Jerwy would fix him! ’ 
And she marches him over to Jerry. And you 
know Comfie, Phyl. He always acts like a 
flash of lightning whenever he sees Jerry any¬ 
how -” 

Phyllis giggled as Joyce paused for breath. 
“ It must have been funny! ” 





AFTER VACATION 


175 


“ Funny! If you still have the idea that 
Kits and Comfie are a pair of Comfort Kits, I 
wish you’d been there trying to catch that cat! 
He was the most disreputable thing I ever saw, 
and Kits wasn’t much better. She was crying 
and her eye was getting all yellowy and 
purple. We had a lovely time, but Carol 
caught him finally and Jerry had a sweet 
patient. His neck’s still bandaged. You’ll 
see him.” 

True to Joyce’s prophecy, Phyllis saw the 
wounded Comfie within an hour. She had 
scarcely slipped from her traveling dress into 
something cooler when she heard soft feet on 
the stairs, and Kits, her eye faded to a becom¬ 
ing green, with her fellow-sufferer in her arms, 
appeared. 

“ Is you back? ” she asked from the door¬ 
way. 

Phyllis turned. “ Oh, hullo, Kits! Yes, 
I’m back. Glad to see me? ” She held out her 
arms and Kits accepted the invitation with 
only one reservation: “ Be careful of Comfie’s 
neck, Phylwis!” 

Phyllis hugged the Comfort Kits with due 
caution. “ What happened to you? ” 


176 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Fight,” said Kits in her soft little voice. 

Phyllis choked. “ But, Kits,” she remon¬ 
strated, “ ladies aren’t supposed to fight, and 
you shouldn’t bring Comfie up to do it 
either! ” 

“ Didn’t,” Kits had the calm air of being 
right. “ ’Twas Billy taught Pwince. I don’t 
like Pwince! ” 

“ I don’t either,” agreed Phyllis, remember¬ 
ing the un-royal looking “ Prince.” 44 But 
wasn’t it nice you could get such a good doctor 
as Jerry! ” 

That reminded Kits of something. “ Has 
you seen Jerwy’s gar-den yet? ” she asked 
anxiously. 

“ No,” laughed Phyllis, “ not yet; I’ve just 
got back, you know.” 

That fact made no difference to Kits. “ You 
must come now,” she insisted, “ right away 
now, Phylwis! ” 

If Phyllis had known what “ Jeremiah’s 
Pride ” was like in late August, she would 
never have thought of unpacking. Even be¬ 
fore they had crossed the stretch of green lawn 
with its long shadows from the maple-trees, 


AFTER VACATION 


177 


Phyllis knew why Uncle Rob had christened it 
“ Jeremiah’s Pride,” and why people stopped 
to look at it. She had thought it lovely in 
spring with its daffodils and tulips and fleurs- 
de-lis, and when the peonies and roses and 
lilies began to bloom she thought it was per¬ 
fect. It hadn’t been, but Phyllis couldn’t 
know that. How could she guess Jerry’s roses 
would be as lovely and delicate as when she had 
left them in June? Or how perfect the bells 
on the tall, slender, many-colored gladiolas 
would seem, or the gorgeous eanna-lilies 
blooming above their stiff stems, and green and 
auburn-brown leaves, separated from fragile 
blue larkspur and her hollyhock princesses and 
feathery coxcomb by a hedge of Mexican fire 
plant just beginning to be touched with its au¬ 
tumn fire, and back of that, row after row of 
exquisite asters—purple asters, lavender, pink, 
rose, white, shaded. How could Phyllis guess 
that Jerry’s garden —any garden, would be so 
lovely it would make your throat hurt as Phyl¬ 
lis’ was hurting now? Phyllis caught her 
breath and tried to laugh. It seemed silly, 
wanting to cry—over a garden! Phyllis had 




178 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


seen gardens before, beautiful ones, with cool 
little fountains, and shady summer-houses and 
dainty statues, and they had never made her 
want to cry, and there were none of these 
things in Jerry Lancy’s garden, but—“ Jere¬ 
miah’s Pride ” was different! It was differ¬ 
ent! Perhaps it was because Jerry loved each 
separate flower, and they loved him—was that 
silly, too, to think plants and flowers could love 
people? Phyllis’ head went up with that cu¬ 
rious little lift. She wanted to be silly, then, 
and anyway, “ a garden is a lovesome spot! ” 

“It is pwetty, isn’t it? ” Kits asked. 

“ Pretty! ” Phyllis winked back the tears. 
“ Oh— Kits! ” 

“ Are you really glad to get back? ” Joyce 
inquired the next morning. She was sitting 
in the crossed-legged fashion Jerry disap¬ 
proved of, watching her cousin move from 
trunk to closet, with side trips to the windows 
overlooking “ Jeremiah’s Pride.” 

“ Glad? ” Phyllis straightened from a dive 
into the trunk’s depths where her books were 
stored, “why, of course I’m glad! Why 
shouldn’t I be?” 


AFTER VACATION 


179 


“ U-um,” said Joyce thoughtfully, “ I don’t 
know, I’m sure.” 

But Phyllis, carrying her Literature Ave¬ 
nue friends over to the little alcove book¬ 
shelves in the window, dimpled to herself. 

“ It was lovely of Uncle Rob to build these 
shelves and this seat here for me this sum¬ 
mer! ” She knelt on the window-seat to place 
the books. “ I love window-seats! ” 

“ Yes, you told Mumsie you did. But have 
you really found the Land of your Heart’s De¬ 
sire, Phyl? ” 

Phyllis flushed. “ Not quite,” she con¬ 
fessed, “ but I’m going to some day.” 

“ And are you going to try to make the 
basket-ball team? ” 

Phyllis put Ivanhoe in his place very slowly. 
Had Joy seen- 

“ Why? ” she asked. 

“ Oh—Carol asked me one day. She said 
you’d been watching us so carefully this 
spring, and she thought maybe you could do 
it—if you really wanted to. She thought you’d 
make a pretty good center. She’s the captain, 
this year.” 




180 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

Phyllis breathed easier. “ Well—I’d 
thought about trying. 

“ Did you see a lot of Carol this summer? ” 
she continued. 

“ Oh, yes. She spent most of July with us. 
Hillcrest is about as cheerful in summer as a 
prison. We had a picnic or two, and once or 
twice we tried to climb High Hill, and we 
paint Well, we did lots of things to¬ 
gether.” Joyce grew a trifle indefinite at this 
point. “ Oh, by the way, we’re going to play 
tennis this afternoon, and Francie wants you 
to come.” 

If Hillcrest was not a “ Land of Heart’s 
Desire ” to Phyllis, it at least wasn’t the bat¬ 
tlefield it had been. She understood the 
steady routine which kept the school running 
smoothly better now; the quiet rooms with 
the late summer sunshine filling their windows 
didn’t weary her as they had done at first; and 
very gradually she was beginning to learn 
Hillcrest’s language, the language that had 
seemed so heart-breakingly mysterious in the 
spring. And if Phyllis found Hillcrest more 
inviting, Hillcrest was coming to the conclu- 



AFTER VACATION 


181 


sion that Phyllis Lancy might not be as bad as 
she had seemed at first. Mrs. Saunders had 
taught her a pretty good game of tennis; she 
went to the try-out for the basket-ball team 
and won a minor position; and she could sing. 
Most of all, she could sing! It could not be 
said that she was popular, ora“ leader of the 
school,” but ITillcrest—that part of Hillcrest 
which knew her, and most of it did, since, as 
Emmie said, she “ was a girl without a class,” 
looked at her with interest. There might be 
some use for a girl who could paraphrase 
“ America the Beautiful ” on the top of High 
Hill in a thunder-storm! And Phyllis looked 
back more confidently, and smiled, still shyly, 
but more frankly, and went on her way, her 
head still high, but lifted with a gesture of hap¬ 
piness, and not defiance this time. 

“ I really believe I’m past the thorny path, 
Motherdy,” she confided to the other Phyllis. 
The picture-Phyllis smiled down at her. Per¬ 
haps she knew the thorny path was still to 


come. 



CHAPTER XIV 


“ THORNY PATH ” 

Phyllis met “ the Thorny Path ” early in 
October. Not that Hillcrest was introduced 
to her as the “ Thorny Path.” Dara Knight 
was responsible for that. Hillcrest first heard 
of her when a warm and miserable southeast 
storm was making the air misty and sending 
the gaily-colored leaves fluttering dejectedly 
down to a wet earth. It was not the sort of 

day at all on which to hear bad news, but- 

it descended upon the juniors at the end of 
their history recitation, which wasn’t strange, 
since it concerned Miss Nita. Every Hillcrest 
girl who could possibly do it elected to take 
history. It wasn’t that they were all so fond 
of history, it was Miss Nita—no girl in her 
classes ever stopped to think of her as “ Miss 
Farendale,” and Hillcrest said that if you saw 
Miss Nita away from her desk, you wouldn’t 
have known that she was a teacher! 


182 



“THORNY PATH” 


183 


“ I don’t know it even then, sometimes,” 
Francie had added. 

Miss Nita was very pretty and also very 
little. Some visitors had once taken her for a 
pupil, and several giggling freshmen had made 
the mistake of whispering to each other it was 
going to be “ easy ” to have fun with her. It 
wasn’t. It seemed to be quite the other way. 
Hillcrest didn’t understand it, even Lady 
Elizabeth didn’t understand it, but even the 
most rebellious girls obeyed Miss Nita im¬ 
plicitly, and it was queer, for Miss Nita didn’t 
act in the least like a teacher. If you made a 
mistake, she laughed at you quite frankly; if 
you had a poorly prepared recitation, she could 
make you feel somewhere near the size of an 
ant; but if you really failed in an examination, 
she could be comfortingly sympathetic. She 
didn’t lose interest in you after you left her 
classroom either, and when, that dreary wet 
afternoon, Miss Nita closed her book and made 
her announcement, the juniors could have 
given a wail of protest if they hadn’t known 
Miss Nita well enough to know it wouldn’t do 
them a particle of good. 


184 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ We’ve had a wet lesson for a wet day,” 
Miss Nita’s voice was whimsical, but there was 
something about it that made the juniors sud¬ 
denly look up. “ And I’m like the courtiers of 
Henry First; I’ve got something on my mind I 
don’t want to tell you, but here it is: I’m going 
away. I don’t want to go. I don’t like the word 
‘ Good-bye ’ a bit, and I do like you, but my 
sister is ill, and I am going away with her, so 
I’m afraid this is the last week I’ll be able to 
be at Hillcrest. And I’ve got a favor to ask of 
you: you’ve been a lovely class to me; will you 
please promise to be a nice one to my successor, 
and try to like her, please? ” 

When Miss Nita smiled at you and said 
“ Please,” you felt as if you had to promise her 
whatever she asked. What could the juniors 
do but what the freshmen and seniors had done 
already, and give their promise? 

But somehow the rain had a drearier splash 
against the windows, and basket-ball practice 
wasn’t exactly energetic. After next week 
Miss Nita wouldn’t be there to say, “ That was 
a good game you played yesterday, Carol,” or, 
“ Well, Baby, I’m certainly glad Hillcrest 


“ THORNY PATH ” 


185 


didn’t have to depend entirely on your efforts 
to win that game to-day! ” 

“ History without Miss Nita! ” Baby kicked 
off her shoes and let them lie just where they 
fell, one on top of the other. “ Think of—of 
it! ” 

“I don’t want to, thank you!” snapped 
Joyce, jerking at her middy-ribbon. 

“ She’s the only person I’ve ever known who 
could make me like history,” mourned Carol, 
“ but when she begins talking about those end¬ 
less old wars, they’re really tragedies; you 
almost think you remember them yourself. 
Remember the day she demonstrated the 
coronation of Mary, Queen of Scots, Joy? 
You were Mary of Lorraine.” 

Joyce nodded dismally. “ Of course, there 
was a time when the history classes didn’t have 
Miss Nita, but that was back in the dark 
ages-” 

“ Joyce Lancy!” It was an indignant 
chorus. “ She isn’t as old as all that! ” 

Joyce was too miserable to make a retort. 
She ploughed savagely through the very 
middle of a puddle on her way home, splashing 



186 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


the unlucky Phyllis so generously that she was 
moved to protest. “ Joy-ce! You needn’t— 
ow!—sprinkle me so! ” 

Joyce kept doggedly on her silent way, 
and, when Joyce was silent, she was very 
miserable indeed! 

“ And we’ve promised to like her successor,” 
Dara reminded the girls as they stood on the 
school steps watching the car, which was carry¬ 
ing Miss Nita out of Hillcrest’s sight, dis¬ 
appear around a curve. 

“Yes,” said Francie mournfully, “I—I 
wish we hadn’t, somehow.” 

“ Wonder what she’ll be like? ” Lucy Thorn¬ 
ton mused. 

“Like? Like? ” flashed Dara. “Well, I 
can tell you what she wont be like! She 
w-won’t be anything like Miss N-Nita! Oh, 
come on inside! It’s cold out here! ” 

“ Yes, I do think you’d better go in,” 
Francie was solicitous, “you do seem to have 
a cold in your head, Dara.” 

Afterward all of Hillcrest agreed that 
Lady Elizabeth hadn’t been quite fair. She 
might have given them some warning at least, 


“ THORNY PATH” 187 

but they were wholly unprepared for Miss 
Nita’s successor. They hadn’t expected her to 

be anything like Miss Nita, of course, but- 

“ Wouldn’t you have thought Lady Eliza¬ 
beth could have used Miss Nita as a pat¬ 
tern? ” Joyce asked pathetically a week later. 

Baby shook her head. “ I don’t believe 
there is another Miss Nita.” 

“ I don’t mean another Miss Nita! ” Joyce’s 

voice was impatient. “ There must have been 

% 

something between Miss Nita and-” 

“ The Thorny Path,” said Dara gently. 
Joyce sat up on the couch. Baby stopped 
overturning Francie’s neatly-stacked maga¬ 
zines. Francie herself let the nightgown she 
was embroidering drop to her lap, though she 
still held the needle raised to take another 
stitch. 

“ What’s the matter? You look like a tab¬ 
leau for Sleeping Beauty. She is, isn’t she?— 
The Thorny Path to Learning? ” 

“Thorny Path! Dara! How did you 
think of it? ” 

“ She certainly is! ” agreed Baby fervently. 
“ Oh, Dara, you’ll be famous for that! ” 




188 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


The junior class had waited politely in its 
recitation-room at the usual hour. And 
when the door opened and they saw the sub¬ 
stitute teacher—even the seniors confessed 
afterward to a panic at their first sight of Miss 
Hawthorn. As for the juniors, they were 
indignant. Did Lady Elizabeth really sup¬ 
pose this tall, cold-eyed, stern-faced, iron¬ 
footed teacher could take Miss Nita’s place? 
And they had promised to like her! Like 
her? It couldn’t be done! 

“ Young ladies,” Lady Elizabeth had 
spoken in her most duchess-like voice, “ this is 
Miss Hawthorn, who will complete this term 
in Miss Farendale’s place. Miss Hawthorn, 
Hillcrest’s junior class. I trust you will find 
no difficulties,” 

Before they had finished reciting the trials 
of Henry Second, the juniors knew Lady 
Elizabeth’s hopes were vain. There would be 
difficulties, both for Miss Hawthorn and her 
classes. Miss Nita’s smile had been com¬ 
radely; but Miss Hawthorn’s wasn’t. Miss 
Nita’ s voice had had a sound of laughter; Miss 
Hawthorn’s was like a steel knife. Miss Nita 


“THORNY PATH” 


189 


had a way of coaxing the right answers from a 
girl; Miss Hawthorn turned the most interest¬ 
ing incident into History with a capital H. 

Phyllis was shocked to find herself using 
Dara’s name for her, but it was the only one 
that seemed to fit, and she always seemed to 
have a sudden wave of anger when she saw her 
sitting in Miss Nita’s place. And they had 
promised to like her! Phyllis looked wistfully 
up out of the high window. The cold pale blue 
of the sky with the grey branches moving 
across it reminded her of Miss Hawthorn’s 
eyes. She shivered. Miss Nita’s eyes had 

been blue, too, but- 

“ Miss Lancy! Miss Phyllis Lancy! ” 
Phyllis jumped. “ Y r es, Miss Hawthorn? ” 
“ Are you following this recitation? ” 
Phyllis nodded. “ Y r es, Miss Hawthorn.” 

“ It did not appear so. However, if you are 
one of the few gifted people who can follow a 
recitation with your attention fixed on the oak- 
tree outside the window, you may take up the 
recitation where Miss Batton left it, and, no 
matter how poorly prepared you are, it would 
be difficult for you to succeed in making a 



190 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

worse blotch of to-day’s lesson than Miss 
Batton did.” 

By pure luck Phyllis hit upon the right pas¬ 
sage, but evidently Phyllis Lancy’s and Miss 
Plawthorn’s opinions on the character of 
Richard the First didn’t agree. Miss Haw¬ 
thorn frowned. 

“ Most interesting, I am sure. May I ask 
what your grounds are for your opinions? ” 

“ Miss Nita said- 

Miss Hawthorn had heard the name “ Miss 
Nita ” before in the past three weeks. She 
thought it was a ridiculous one. She said so. 
She said several other things. 

“ Miss Nita! ‘ Miss Nita! ’ ‘ Miss Nita! ’ 
‘ Miss Nita! ’ I only had the pleasure of 
meeting the charming lady once, but I can re¬ 
member her name was Miss Farendale. It is 
not surprising my history classes are the de¬ 
plorable things they are, when my predecessor 
had so small an amount of respect for herself 
that she allowed you to call her by her first 
name! No teacher who has a nickname can 
have either respect for herself or control over 
her classes! ” 



“ THORNY PATH ” 


191 


A sudden sound startled the juniors and 
astounded Miss Hawthorn. If it had been 
Baby or Joyce or Lucy—but from Phyllis 
Lancy—a giggle from Phyllis JLancy at that 

particular moment- As a matter of fact, 

Phyllis had been growing terribly angry and 
then at the thought that the history classes had 
only been “ deplorable ” since Miss Haw¬ 
thorn’s arrival, and the memory of Dara’s voice 
saying so gently, “ The Thorny Path ” made 
something inside her break loose. 

The silence which fell after that giggle was 
not a comfortable one. And then: 

“ You laughed, I believe, Miss Lancy? Will 
you not tell us the source of amusement? 
Perhaps we are capable of appreciating it! ” 

“ I—I was remembering the nickname of 
one teacher I knew!” Phyllis met the 
angry gaze quite steadily, although her voice 
shook a little. 

“ Indeed! What was the nickname, may I 
ask?” 

The juniors held their breath. If it had 
been Dara or Joy, they could have been de¬ 
pended upon—but Phyllis- 





192 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Phyllis lifted her chin. “ I don’t think it 
would be fair to either the teacher or the school 
to tell you that, Miss Hawthorn.” 

The juniors breathed again. 

“ Phyl saved us that time! ” Dara observed, 
as she and Carol accompanied the others down 
Hillcrest Avenue. Having been very good 
indeed for the past week, Dara and Carol had 
earned permission to go down to Parkview to 
do some shopping. “ But girls—do you sup¬ 
pose we could make Thorny Path leave? 
Before the end of the term? If we don’t. 
Lady Elizabeth will surely engage her for 
the rest of her life! It—it—well, it seems 
as if we ought to, not only for our own sakes, 
but for the sake of all the classes who come 
after us.” 

“ You sound like boarding-school stories!” 
scoffed Carol disparagingly, “ where all the 
powerful girls outlaw the poor suffering 
heroine! ” 

“Well, it’s done!” Dara defended. “In 
England they send them to Coventry, and 
Thorny Path isn’t a poor suffering hero- 





44 THORNY PATH” 


193 


Baby choked, but Carol was not dismayed. 
“ Maybe they do, but this isn’t England. If 
we tried to send Thorny Path to Coventry, 
we'd get sent home! ” 

“ And I don’t want to be expelled just 
now!” added Joyce uncomfortably, “ there’s 

the Student’s Exhibition coming on-” she 

stopped embarrassedly. “ Don’t try to make 
a conspirator of me, Dara, please! ” 

“ But the worst of it is,” Babv scowled at 
the dancing blue river, “ that we 'promised 
Miss Nita to like her and be nice to her! ” 
“We promised to try to like her,” corrected 
Dara, “ and nobody could be- Oh, per¬ 

haps I could!” The mischief-imps danced 
into her black eyes. “ Yes, I think I could! 
Oh, you just watch me! I’m going to be very 
nice to her! ” 

“ How? ” Joyce and Baby sounded skepti¬ 
cal. 

“ I am, that’s all. You watch me.” 

“We will!” they promised. They knew 
from experience that Dara might have her own 
ways about being nice! 






/ 


CHAPTER XV 

KITS USES STRATEGY 

“ I believe I’ll see Lady Elizabeth about 
joining Miss Marstead’s water-color class, and 
submitting a picture for the Madam Halstead 
Prize,” Emmie looked thoughtfully at the half- 
closed studio door on her return from gym. 

Lucy giggled and Francie slowly shook her 
head. “ I’d like to have you try, Emmie,” 
she said regretfully, 4 4 but you might take the 
Prize away from Blanche or Carol, and 
Blanche is really anxious about it.” 

Emmie sighed. “ All right, but Carol and 
Mary and Joy all got excused from the last 
fifteen minutes of English History to-day be¬ 
cause they’re getting ready for that Exhibi¬ 
tion! Think of missing Thorny Path’s last 
tirade! ” 

“ But they missed seeing Dara be 4 nice ’ to 
her, too!” Baby chuckled at the recollection. 
“ Oh, Dara, you’re awful! ” 

19 4 < 


KIT USES STRATEGY 


195 


“I’m being nice to her!” Dara insisted. 
“ You’re the people who upset things. She 
likes me best of any one in her classes! ” 

Baby choked. “ I should think she would! 
Oh, hello, Miss Joanna Sargeant! So you’ve 
really decided to enter the Contest, too? ” 

Joyce spent a preoccupied minute in arrang¬ 
ing her books in a more comfortable position. 
“ Have I? ” she asked innocently. “ Who said 
so, Baby? ” 

“ You did, you old pretender, and you know 
it perfectly well! Y r ou said you didn’t want 
to be expelled with the Student Exhibition 
coming on, and then you blushed. Y r ou do 
blush beautifully, Joy. What’s your picture 
going to be? ” 

“ It isn’t—yet,” said Joyce calmly. 

“Joyce Lancy!” Baby looked at her re¬ 
proachfully. “ I’m positive you’re going to 
enter something for that Madam Halstead 
Prize thing! ” 

“ Well? ” Joyce’s tone was mildly inquiring. 

“ ‘ Well,’ that’s just what we want to know! 
You are, aren’t you? Mary says you paint 
beautifully; she doesn’t see how you do it.” 



196 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Oh, yes, she does; quite often; she sits next 
to me most of the time.” 

Phyllis giggled. Baby’s face was too funny. 
She knew from experience just how aggravat¬ 
ing her cousin could be on the Madam Hal¬ 
stead Prize subject! Nobody would have 
thought of noisy, impish Joy as being shy, and 
yet Phyllis was beginning to have a suspicion 
that she was shy about her ambition to paint. 
It was the one thing Joy wouldn’t talk of, at 
least, and in spite of all her coaxing, she had 
never seen many of Joy’s sketches. As for the 
Prize Exhibition, Joyce had nearly given her 
family nervous prostration with her gentle 
refusals to enter it! 

“ I can’t paint things the way they should 
be painted,” she said. “ Why insult a Greek 
vase by making it look like a tea-kettle? ” 

Miss Marstead scolded, Uncle Rob al¬ 
most commanded, even Jerry had been moved 
to reason with her. Joyce merely smiled. Of 
all the stubborn Lancys, Joy could be the most 
provoking when she wanted to be! 

It was Kits who had come to the rescue. 
The girls found her energetically dragging au- 


KIT USES STRATEGY 


197 


tumn leaves along the walk with her small 
rake, one afternoon. 

“ Oh, hello, Kits!” Joyce was in an ami¬ 
able mood. “ What are you doing with your 
small self to-day ? ” 

“I’m getting all the leave-fwaries to- 
gever,” Kits responded promptly. “ I like 
the leave-fwaries—but they don’t stay still! ” 

“ That’s because they’re so happy,” Phyllis 
said softly, but Joyce did not hear her. She 
was too much interested in Kits. “ Leave- 
fairies, child! What do you mean?” 

“ The Au-tumn Pwincess makes them,” 
Kits explained, looking like an autumn prin¬ 
cess herself with her gold head above her brown 
sweater, and the red-handled rake clasped in 
her hand, “ Phylwis told me. The people 
didn’t want the Au-tumn Pwincess to come! 
They thought she’d be cold an’ horwid an’ scare 
all the birds an’ fwowers away. But she isn’t! 
They’re not scared of her one bit! They like 
her! She’s pwetty! But you can’t see her, 
’cause she’s got an all grey-y veil to cover up 
her face, an’ her dwess is blue—just like the 
sky, an’ she unties the leaves from the twees 


198 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


an’ gives them party-dwesses an’ lets them 
dance with her, an’ she tells the birds ’tis time 
to go far ’way from Winter’s snow, and she 
whisphers to the fwowers to go to sleep.” 

“ Have you really got breath left? ” Joyce 
inquired. “ It sounds—like—like a picture. 
If I could do that for the exhibition-” 

“But you can’t!” Kits interrupted with 
wide eyes. “ You can’t paint it, Joy! ” 

Joyce was startled into an astonished stare. 
“I can’t?” 

Kits shook her gold head positively. “ No! 
You said so! You said you couldn’t paint a 
picture of Comfie and Peter Hoehandle, 
’cause you didn’t know the right way to make 
pictures! ” 

“ Oh,” said Joyce in a very small voice. 

She didn’t say anything more, and Phyllis, 
after a hasty look in her direction, didn’t 
either. Phyllis had learned when to hold her 
tongue, but she wasn’t worrying about her 
cousin’s part in the Exhibition any longer! 
The Lancys had reason to thank Kits for her 
strategy! 

Miss Marstead had no more excuse for say- 





KIT USES STRATEGY 


199 


ing grimly: “ If you could really decide to 

work -” Joyce spent every moment she 

was allowed in the studio. And Phyllis, who 
held her breath for fear her temperamental 
cousin would change her mind once again, 
listened in awe to Carol’s almost terrifyingly 
frank criticism: 

“ Madam Plalstead will know what my pic¬ 
ture is supposed to be, at least! ” laughed 
Carol. “ Y r ours looks a trifle mysterious to 
me!” 

“ I want it mysterious,” Joyce was imper¬ 
turbable. 44 Get permission to come down with 
us, Carol. Mother made a jar of cookies this 
morning, and while you’re down there, you’ll 
have a chance to see what a garden really looks 
like in November. Your straw-stacks would 
make lovely scarecrows! Now when the 
judges see my picture, they’ll say: 4 Isn’t Miss 
Lancy’s a charming subject? And so well 
treated? Not like some of the others—so 
plainly the work of amateurs- 

44 4 But really, don’t you think Miss Brad¬ 
ford’s 44 Winter Robe ” deserves the Prize? 
finished Carol. 44 Cheer up, Joy, perhaps 





200 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


something will happen to my 4 Robe.’ I’d 
never have the courage to do it over again.” 

But Joyce didn’t change her mind. She 
was even the last to leave the studio the Friday 
before the Exhibition opened. Phyllis, who 
had patiently waited for her, replaced the 
books she had been reading on the shelves of 
the school library, and slipped out into the 
broad hall to meet her. “Is it all finished? ” 
Joyce, her eyes shining excitedly, nodded. 
“ Everything’s finished,” she said, “ every 
single, solitary thing, Phyl Lancy! Where’s 
Baby? ” 

“ She’s gone. You’re awfully late, Joy. 
Mary met me an hour ago, and she told me 
you and Carol were still working. And then 
Carol came into the library.” 

“Yes,” admitted Joyce, “ she went before 
I did.” She gave a joyous little skip. 
“ Wait until you see Carol’s picture! Madam 

Halstead will give it the Prize-” 

“ Nothing did happen to it, then? ” Phyllis 
was only remembering Carol’s laughing 
speech, but Joyce almost stood still. “ Hap- 
hap-pened to it? What would happen to it? ” 



KIT USES STRATEGY 


201 


“ I don’t know,” Phyllis admitted. “ Carol 
told you to cheer up, you know.” 

A dimple crept out at the corner of Joyce’s 
mouth. “ Y r es, but it’s safe! And she’ll get 
the Prize—I hope she will anyhow. But 
Blanche is just a natural-born getter! ” 

But Carol didn’t get it. 

The Student’s Exhibition opened Monday 
night. There were several other pictures, of 
course, a few in oils, more from the water-color 
class, and others from the pencil-drawing de¬ 
partment. But Phyllis was only anxious 
about two of them. She made her way to 
“ No. 23, ‘ Coming of Autumn,’ Joyce 
Lancy,” and drew a sharp breath. Joyce had 
done it! Oh, Joyce had done it! Brown and 
gold leaves danced in the air and fell over the 
hazy blue of the shadowy Autumn Princess’ 
dress as she bent to “ whispher ” to a flower. 
The grey-smoke veil hid her face, but you 
could see things weren’t afraid of her, for the 
asters and goldenrod almost looked as if they 
were nestling against her. Joyce probably 
would never be a famous artist, but some¬ 
how she could paint surprisingly well. 



202 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Come on and see Carol’s! ” Joyce was de¬ 
manding. “ Hers is wonderful! Oh, there’s 
Jerry! He didn’t think—wait a minute!” 
She darted after her tall brother. “ Carol’s— 
down—there,” she panted in a satisfied tone 
when they reached Phyllis. “ Now! ” 

The catalogue called it “ Winter Robe,” but 
nobody who had ever seen it could mistake 
“ Jeremiah’s Pride,” though the flowers slept 
under the first snow, and only the pyra¬ 
mids of straw showed where the rose-trees and 
bushes were, and little hills of leaves covered 
the peonies and other plants, but Phyllis had 
been right: “Jeremiah’s Pride” was lovely 
even with the snow clouds above it and the 
light fingers of the storm on the feathery 
Eulalia grass. 

“ Don’t you like it, Jerry? ” Joyce was ask¬ 
ing impatiently. “ Why don’t you say some¬ 
thing? ” 

Jerry shook his head. “ I’m not used to 
such surprises. Thank you, Miss Carol Brad¬ 
ford; vou’ve done what I have alwavs wanted 

*■ j 

to do—and couldn’t.” 

Carol, who had been looking intently at her 





But she didn’t sound glad .—Page 203. 


























KIT USES STRATEGY 


203 


“ Winter Robe,” turned to him with eyes that 
were very, very still. 

“ Thank you, Doctor Lancy, I’m glad if 
you like it.” But she didn’t sound glad. She 
sounded pitifully tired and discouraged. 

“Well, of all the things!” gasped Joyce, 
looking after her as she disappeared through 
the crowd. “ What’s the matter with her? ” 

“ Tired,” said Jerry briefly. “ She must 
have worked hard over this.” 

“ It—it is good, isn’t it? ” Joyce asked 
eagerly. 

“ It certainly is.” 

“ Don’t—don’t you think the judges will— 
will like it enough to give it the Prize? ” Joy’s 
voice was a little unsteady. 

“ I haven’t seen the rest of the Exhibition 
yet,” Jerry looked at his sister sharply. “ Go 
home early, Joy. YYm’re tired yourself.” 

“I’m not!” denied Joyce, though her 
cheeks were flushed nearly the color of the 
crimson Hillcrest banners decorating the 
walls. “ It’s that awful doctor-instinct in 
you.” 

Nevertheless, she was still sleeping when 


204* 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Phyllis was nearly ready for school the next 
morning, and she started on the uphill climb 
somewhat wearily. 

“ I am glad it’s over,” she confessed to Phyl¬ 
lis. “ A Competition is an awful thing! But 
I’m glad I entered. It will be something to 
be thankful about Thursday.” 

But she still looked tired when classes were 
dismissed that afternoon. A little freshman 
met them almost at the door. “ Miss Marstead 
wants to see you right away, Joy. She says 
it’s very important.” 

“ Wants to see me? About something im¬ 
portant? ” Joyce frowned. “What is it, 
Doris? Do you know? ” 

“ Perhaps it’s the Prize,” Phyllis suggested, 
her hopes flaring high. 

Joyce looked almost startled. “ I—don’t— 
believe so. It wasn’t to be awarded until next 
week. You’d better not wait, Phyl.” 

“ I won’t, because I promised Aunt Mar¬ 
garet I’d make a cake, you know.” 

Aunt Margaret was at the dentist’s, and 
Phyllis had just finished making the chocolate 
filling for the cake when the door opened and 



KIT USES STRATEGY 


205 


closed softly, and Joyce went up the stairs. 
When she didn’t come down, Phyllis, who had 
been consumed with curiosity for the past hour, 
followed her. 

“ Mother-” 

“ It isn’t Aunt Margaret, Joy, it’s Phyl. 
What did Miss Mar- Why what-” 

Joyce was standing beside her open desk, 
the Japanese box Phyllis had often noticed 
wide open, and the contents scattered about. 
Joyce could certainly keep a secret, though no 
one would have guessed it. There were more 
water-colors and sketches in that box than 
Phyllis had ever guessed her cousin had made. 
And most of them were of Carol,—Carol 
standing in the swing; Carol kneeling at the 
brook in Hillcrest meadow; Carol coaxing a 
badly-drawn squirrel to come nearer; Carol 
standing very straight on a solitary rock near 
the top of High Hill, her arms outstretched to 
the world below. 

“ I liked this one best,” Joyce sounded as if 
she were talking to herself. “She looked so 
sweet and dear and b-brave with the wind 
about her! And now—she thinks-” With 






206 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

a quick gesture she tore the picture from top 
to bottom. 

“ Joy! Joy dear! ” Phyllis was frightened. 
“ What’s happened? What did Miss Mar- 
stead want? ” 

Joyce faced her, her eyes blazing, her mouth 
trying to be stern, but with a betraying little 
tremble. 

“ She wanted,” Joyce’s voice was carefully 
light, except for a tiny break at the end, “ to 
tell me she knew I was—a—cheat.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


SHIPWRECK 

“ Joy ! She couldn’t! ” 

“ Oh, yes, she could.” If you hadn’t been 
listening very carefully, you would have 
thought Joyce was almost cheerful about it. 
“ She found it out yesterday. I am, you see.” 

“ Joy -” 

“ Oh, yes, I am. You remember I stayed 
in the studio Friday after everybody, even 
Miss Marstead, had gone? Well, I spoiled 
Carol’s picture then. You remember what she 
said? ” 

Yes, Phyllis remembered. “ Cheer up, Joy, 
perhaps something will happen to my 4 Robe.’ 
I’d never have the courage to do it over!” 
And she remembered how Joyce had looked 
on Friday afternoon when she reminded her of 
it. But Joyce—oh, it couldn't be—Joyce—a 
cheat! Phyllis shivered. How could Joyce go 
on in that steadily-even tone? 

207 







208 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ I spilled water on it just as I was cleaning 
up. I made a pretty good job of it, didn’t I? ” 

Water! There must, there must be a mis¬ 
take! Phyllis had seen that picture! There 
were no water-marks on it! 

“ Oh,” said Joyce, “ I painted it out. That 
was what kept me so long. That’s what’s the 
trouble. Miss Marstead saw it yesterday and 
asked Carol about it. It seems I don’t paint 
snow as she does. Her picture’s forfeited for 
the Prize now. Isn’t her work. Do you sup¬ 
pose ‘ Coming of Autumn 5 might get it now, 
Phyl? ” 

“ Joy! ” All the agony in Phyllis’ heart 
rose in the cry. “ Joy, you didn’t—you 
couldn't cheat! ” 

“ Couldn’t I? Miss Marstead doesn’t agree 
with you. Neither does Carol.” 

Carol? Carol didn’t believe that Joyce was 
honest? Carol thought that Joyce could— 
Phyllis remembered her white, quiet face in 
her classes to-day, and her eyes. Carol’s eyes 
usually laughed, but to-day they made you 

want to look away again. Carol believed such 
a thing! 


SHIPWRECK 


209 


“ She knew how much I wanted that Prize, 
even when I talked so—and she saw me com¬ 
ing from the studio Friday—I guess I did look 
a little excited, didn’t I? What’s the matter, 
Phyl? It’s not your picture I’ve for-for- 
feited.” 

“You didn’t!” Phyllis was almost choked 
with anger. “ I know you didn’t cheat! ” 

“ Oh, yes, I did. I painted that corner over. 
I didn’t tell any one about it.” 

Phyllis stamped her foot. “ I don’t care 
how many corners you painted over! You 
didn’t cheat! Why did you paint it over, 
Joyce Lancy? ” 

Joyce didn’t answer. Her mouth suddenly 
drooped. 

Oh, wouldn’t Aunt Margaret ever come? 

“ And if Carol believes that you—that you 
—you know—she isn’t worthy of your friend¬ 
ship!” 

“Oh, yes, she is!” Joyce blazed back. 
“ You sha’n’t say that, Phyl Lancy! She is! 
And she has a perfect right to think—I said 
horrible things! —and—and you don’t under¬ 
stand! She’s worked and worked over that 






210 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

picture! It wasn’t only this Prize, it was 
'painting! It’s something inside you, you can’t 
talk about. And when I spilled water on that 
corner Friday-” 

And then the sweetest sound Phyllis had 
ever heard fell upon her ears. “ Why, dear 
girls! What is it?” 

It was Joyce who answered, still in that 
steady, unwavering, un-Joyce like voice: 
“ Phyl’s crying because it’s found out I’m a 
cheat, Muddie. I for-forfeited Carol’s picture 
for the Prize, you see. I painted about three 
inches of the left-hand corner over after every- 
bodv had left the—the studio Friday.” She 
made a violent effort to smile, but failed. 

“ You didn't cheat! ” wailed Phyllis. “ You 
didn’t! You couldn’t! ” 

“ Suppose you tell us about it, Joy.” Aunt 
Margaret reached over and took Phyllis’ 
clenched hands in her own, and her voice was 
very gentle. “ Tell us about it all.” 

“ Doris told me Miss Marstead wanted to 
see me,” Joyce was twisting her fingers. “ So 
I—I went. And—and Carol was there. I— 
Miss Marstead asked me if I knew there was 



SHIPWRECK 


211 


anything wrong with Carol’s picture. Car- 
Carol was dear. She said, ‘ Miss Marstead, I 

told you-’ But I guess I did look queer, 

and they both knew I was the last one in the 
studio Friday and—Miss Marstead said some 
one had tampered with Carol’s picture. One 
corner wasn’t her work. And I—had. Carol 
—Carol said she didn’t believe me, and I—oh, 
I told her it wasn’t much of a compliment! ” 

“ Go on,” said Aunt Margaret gently. 

Joyce gulped. “ Miss Marstead asked me 
if I realized I had forfeited Carol’s picture for 
the Prize, and if it had occurred to me that 
C-C-Coming of Autumn might have a better 
c-chance with Carol’s out of the way, and what 
my ‘motive’ had been.” Joyce’s eyes blazed 
suddenly. “ I said I thought my ‘ motive ’ 
was pretty plain, and what did she think about 
my chances for the Prize now? ” Joyce shiv¬ 
ered. “ And then she—said—I—had—sacri¬ 
ficed—the—honor—of—a—Hillcrest girl! ” 
Joyce spoke very low. “ That it had always 
been Hillcrest’s pride to think its pupils could 
be trusted alone.” 

“ Is that all, dear? What about Carol? ” 








212 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Joyce smiled tiredly. “ Wouldn’t you have 
believed I—had done it on purpose after 
that? ” she demanded. “ If Carol had been 
a-alone, perhaps—I could have told her how 
—how—but Miss Marstead said—said so 
many things, and then I began—oh—I talked 
hatefully! I—I can’t seem to stop my tongue 
sometimes! It’s always been fun to tease 
people. But honestly, I thought that picture 
would get the Prize, and when I spilled water 
on it Friday—I—I was almost crazy. Miss 
Marstead had gone, and Carol was so tired and 
headachy, and—and I never thought about its 
being forfeited if I touched it!—I never 
thought any one would see it! ” 

“ Why didn’t you explain? ” Aunt Mar¬ 
garet’s voice was soft. 

Joyce shook her head wearily. “ I don’t 
know. I tried, but it stuck in my throat, and 
I couldn’t get it out. But—but it doesn’t mat¬ 
ter about the pic-pictures—it’s just Carol— 
I’ve lost her! She’s the f-friend-friendliest 
friend I’ve got, and I’ve lost her! ” 

Aunt Margaret shook her head. “ I don’t 
think Carol’s that kind of a girl, Joy. Making 












SHIPWRECK 


213 


a friend-ship is like building a regular ship. It 
takes a long time, and you’ve got to try out 
everything you put into it very carefully, but 
once it’s made, you can trust it to go safely 
over stormy seas filled with rocks, as well as 
over smooth ponds. That’s a friend-ship, Joy, 
and if you and Carol had a friend-ship, things 
will come right somehow.” 

Joyce opened her lips again, tried to smile, 
and then suddenly she was face downward on 
the little couch sobbing as Phyllis had never 
heard any one sob before, and Aunt Margaret 
was kneeling beside her, gathering the shiver¬ 
ing little figure close; and Phyllis knew she 
must not stay. She ran swiftly away, back to 
the green room and her own picture-mother. 
Crouched in the little window-seat, her hot 
cheek against the cool pane, the sobs rising in 
her own throat, she looked up at the other 
Phyllis. 

“ Oh, Motherdy!” she breathed. “ Oh, 
Motherdy! Friends are terribly queer things! 
It hurts when you haven’t got them, and it 
hurts worse when you have! Oh, why can’t 
people understand each other? ” 


214 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

Oh, how could Carol think that Joy had 
cheated! 

Only the lonely sounding wind answered 
her. Phyllis watched the brown little leaves 
whirling up the street. They looked cold and 
dismal and left out of the cheery bonfires their 
brothers had helped make, and the bare trees 
bending against the cloudy sky didn’t look 
especially happy either. Phyllis couldn’t help 
wondering why the Pilgrims had chosen No¬ 
vember for Thanksgiving. There didn’t seem 
to be anything to be particularly thankful 
about! Oh, why had Joyce kept silent! And 
then suddenly Phyllis knew. Oh, it was awful 
to have Lancy pride like that, but it was worse 
for a friend-ship to be wrecked because of it! 
Phyllis set her teeth. Somebody must do 
something to stop that shipwreck! 

But the sight of Carol Bradford the next 
morning, her head high, that queer look still 
in her eyes, was not encouraging. Phyllis had 
to shake her head to rid her eyes of something 
wet and hot. Oh, that poor, poor floundering 
ship! Phyllis knew how both of them were 
feeling. And neither one would make an ad- 


SHIPWRECK 


215 


vance—there was too much Lancy and Brad¬ 
ford stubbornness in the way. But some one 
must clear that fog of misunderstanding 
away. 

It was after the last recitation period of the 
day that Phyllis followed Carol out of Miss 
Hawthorn’s room. They were both due at the 
gymnasium, but Phyllis had a suspicion Carol 
wasn’t going. She wasn’t; she was starting 
towards the stairs when Phyllis spoke hes¬ 
itatingly. “ Carol, would—would you mind if 
I—came up and talked with you a few min¬ 
utes? ” 

Carol was plainly taken aback, and for a 
second Phyllis thought she was going to say 
that she did mind. 

“ I’m afraid I wouldn’t be very good com¬ 
pany to-day, Phyllis. I’ve work to do, and— 
I’m sorry.” 

“I know!” said Phyllis eagerly, “but I 
won’t take ten minutes! Please, Carol! ” 

Carol hesitated, then she turned away. “ All 
right,” she said, “ come on up.” 

Phyllis followed her silently. Phyllis 
didn’t have the least idea what she was going 




216 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


to say now Carol was giving her the chance to 
say something. She knew what she wanted to 
say, but wanting to say things and saying them 
are two very different matters! 

Carol turned the key in the door. “ Now,” 
she said, facing Phyllis. It was such a dif¬ 
ferent Carol from the one she had always loved 
that Phyllis wanted to put her head down on 
Carol’s couch and cry and cry and cry! But 
she mustn’t. She braced herself a little 
straighter and found the edge of the couch. 
She had to hold on to something! 

“ It’s—it’s about the—Exhibition,” she 
plunged in, and immediately wished she had 
said anything else. 

“ Is that what you wanted to talk about? ” 
Carol asked. “ Do you really have to? I 
don’t want to be rude, but I thought Joy-ce 
and I talked that over pretty thoroughly yes¬ 
terday.” 

“ But you didn’t! ” Phyllis was graspingher 
vanishing courage in both hands. “Joy didnt 
tell you why she painted-” 

“ She said quite a few things.” 

“ Yes! I know she did! But she didn’t mean 





SHIPWRECK 


217 


them, and she didn’t tell you why she painted 

that corner over. I know she didn’t. She- 

Oh, Carol, won’t you try to understand? ” 

“ I’ll try.” 

“ She never thought your picture would be 
forfeited because she touched it, and in clean¬ 
ing up she spilled water on that corner. Was 
your picture anywhere near hers? ” Carol 
nodded. “ She never stopped to think any¬ 
body would see it! She painted it over be¬ 
cause she had done the damage, and she was 
afraid you wouldn’t have the courage to do it 
if you knew, and she knew how much you 
wanted that prize! ” 

“ I wish she’d given me the chance,” said 
Carol’s tired-sounding voice. 

Phyllis clung to the edge of the couch. 
“ But you believe me, don’t you? ” 

Carol was staring at her clasped hands. The 
little clock on her dresser said “ Tick-tock! 
Tick-tock! Tick-tock!” very clearly before 
she admitted in a low voice: “ I—don’t— 
know.” 

“ Oh! ” said Phyllis. 

“ I—I want to! I want to believe Joy-ce 





218 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


didn’t—I love her! How—how do you know 
this, Phyllis? ” 

“ She told Aunt Margaret and me.” Phyl¬ 
lis’ voice was discouraged. Wouldn’t Carol 
understand after all? Was that ship—was the 
fog too thick? She blinked rapidly. She 
mustn’t cry—not up here! 

“ Why didn’t she tell—Miss Marstead— 
yesterday? ” 

Phyllis flamed. “ Would you have told her 
anything after those questions? ” 

Carol’s head shook. “ But Joy-Joyce said 
so—so-” 

“ I know she did! It—but you know how 
Joy talks, Carol!” 

“ Yes. But I didn’t think she’d do it when 
—you wouldn’t have done it, would you? ” 

It was Phyllis’ turn to shake her head. 
“ No, but I’d have said something else. It’s 
the miserable old Lancy pride, Carol. It’s a 
perfectly awful thing to have! It makes you 
say and do things you don’t want to. That’s 
what made Joy act the way she did yesterday. 
She wouldn’t show how hurt she was, the 
Lancy pride wouldn’t let her. It wouldn’t let 




SHIPWRECK 


219 


her explain, either. It’s an awfully stubborn 
thing! It made me say 4 No, thank you, I can 
do it myself,’ when you offered to help me with 
my books last spring. And I’d wanted you to 
show me how to 4 do ’ things ever since the first 
day I was at Hillcrest! Don’t you re¬ 
member? ” 

44 Yes,” said Carol, and smiled. 44 I’m sorry 
I didn’t understand, Phyl.” 

44 That was the trouble with Joy,” Phyllis 
plunged on eagerly. 44 She felt dreadfully, 
but when Miss Marstead—won’t you under¬ 
stand, Carol? ” 

44 I’m—beginning,” said Carol. 44 And she 
did withdraw her picture-” 

Phyllis stared. 44 She withdrew her pic¬ 
ture? ” 

44 Yes. Didn’t she tell you? ” 

Phyllis shook her head. 44 No.” 

It was Carol’s turn to say 44 Oh!” The 
little clock said 44 Tick-tock,” to break the 
silence. Then Phyllis sprang to her feet. 

44 Then—if she did that—you know she 
didn’t—cheat! ” 

44 Well-” 





220 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ And the friend-ship won’t be wrecked! ” 

“The ‘friend-ship ?’ 55 Carol showed a 
spark of interest. 

Phyllis poured out the little story, her words 
tumbling over each other in her happiness. 
“ Aunt Margaret told it to us yesterday, when 
Joy said she’d lost you,” she ended. 

Carol had been looking out of the blue-and- 
gold curtained windows. “ It sounds like your 
Aunt Margaret. It’s raining, Phyl, have you 
an umbrella ? 55 

Phyllis wasn’t interested in umbrellas. 
“I’m afraid Joy has gone home, but won’t you 

telephone her and tell her-” she stopped, 

for Carol had slowly turned to look at her, and 
there was something in Carol’s blue eyes that 
stopped her. 

“ Phyllis, I—can’t! You’ll despise me—I 
despise myself—but Joy-Joyce forfeited my 
picture! I can’t—I can't seem to forgive 
her!” 

Phyllis stood perfectly still. 

“Oh, I hate myself!” Carol’s voice broke. 
“ But I can’t! I can’t! Oh, I—I wish you’d 
go away * ” 





SHIPWRECK 


221 


“ I will,” Phyllis spoke quietly, “ but Carol 
—if—if you think you can, won’t you tel¬ 
ephone? ” 

“ Yes, if I can.” 

Phyllis softly shut the door behind her. She 
hadn’t gotten an umbrella; she hadn’t even 
said good-bye; but what did umbrellas or 
good-byes matter at such a time! 

Phyllis slipped down the stairs and into the 
empty little Hillcrest chapel which was always 
open. She had done all she could for that 
friend-ship except one thing. She lifted her 
face. 

“ Please, please,” she said aloud, “ oh, dear 
God, please help that ship through the fog! 
Please don’t let it be wrecked! ” 



CHAPTER XVII 


THE PRIZE WINNERS 

But Carol came to class the next day still 
with that high-held head and the queer 
“ silent ” look in her eyes, and Joyce left Hill- 
crest that afternoon with the even, monotonous 
note in her voice. Phyllis wanted to shake 
her! And then she wanted to shake Carol! 
Why did they let pride and disappointment 
and misunderstanding come between them? 
And then she wanted to hug them both. They 
couldn’t help it! 

“ I wish Madam Halstead had kept her 
hateful old Prize home!” snapped Phyllis to 
herself when they reached the Lancy library. 
“ And—I wish I knew what to do! ” 

Joyce had gone to the piano and was mak¬ 
ing mournful chords. When Joyce, who was 
far from being a musician, sought the piano, 
things were serious! Phyllis’ mood was dismal 
enough, but she didn’t stop her cousin. She 

222 



THE PRIZE WINNERS 


223 


retreated to her own special corner with a 
book, which, although she didn’t notice it, was 
upside down. It didn’t matter. Phyllis didn’t 
feel in the least like reading. Oh, why didn’t 
Carol do something? Why didn’t she tele¬ 
phone? Was that ship going to be wrecked 
after all? 

Carol, at that particular moment, was doing 
something which would have astonished every¬ 
body connected with Hillcrest. Carol was 
climbing High Hill. Climbing High Hill was 
not an easy task at any time, and even Miss 
Jackson, the gymnasium instructor, whose 
chief pleasure in life, Joyce had complained as 
a freshman, was tiring out Hillcrest girls, 
wouldn’t have recommended it as the most 
pleasant form of winter exercise to be found. 

But Carol had not told Miss Anderson she 
intended climbing Pligh Hill; and she hadn’t 
intended it. She had asked for permission to 
visit Joyce Lancy for two hours, and she ex¬ 
plained quite frankly why she wanted to go. 
And she had truthfully meant to go when she 
left Hillcrest, but somehow she couldn’t! 
She felt her steps faltering more and more 


224 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


as she went up the hill. It seemed to her she 
simply couldn't forgive Joyce for forfeiting 
her picture. She didn’t want to go to Joy, she 
didn’t want to telephone her, she didn’t want 
to tell her she knew now what had happened 
that day in the studio, and that everything was 
all right. It wasn't all right! She had been 

robbed of her chance for the Prize. And vet 

•/ , 

she loved Joy! Why did that make it so much 
harder? Why, even now, out on Hillcrest 
Avenue, where the wind blew about her, and 
the sun shone down, did her heart persist in 
staying so stubbornly shut? She couldn’t go 
on to Joyce and say the things she ought to 
say! What was inside her that wouldn’t let 
her? She could paint other pictures! But— 
suddenly she stood still at the turn of the road. 
She couldn't go on to Joyce. Her feet 
wouldn’t carry her. And everything, the wind 
singing through the pines, the leaves rustling 
at her feet, the automobile wheels humming 
along the road, was singing: “ Why? Why? 
Why? ” 

Carol put her hand to her throat. It ached 
unbearably. 



THE PRIZE WINNERS 


225 


“I want—I want to forget it all!” she 
cried. “ Every bit of it! ” And lifted her eyes 1 
to High Hill. She knew she ought not to go. 
It was late afternoon, and she must be back at 
Hillcrest within her two hours. And climbing 
High Hill was difficult work. But Carol 
wanted to do something difficult! She flung 
up her head and began the even, untiring pace 
Miss Nit a had taught the girls of her Camp 
Fire. If only Miss Nita had been at Hillcrest 
—Carol caught herself up sharply. Thinking 
about Miss Nita wasn’t safe either. 

High Hill offered an obliging number of 
difficulties, difficulties that left Carol panting 
as she stubbornly followed the twisting trail. 
The thick friendly leaves were gone, the brittle 
twigs cracked and broke beneath her feet, 
sending her to her knees. The rough branches, 
cold and wet with rain, caught at her clothing 
and bruised her hands. Carol set her teeth. 
She would not go back now, but as for forget¬ 
ting—it seemed to her she was doing more 
remembering than ever. She and Joyce had 
taken that trail more than once that past July, 
and it was lonely work going over it now with- 



226 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


out hearing Joyce’s laughing, panting voice 
with its whimsical fancies at her elbow: 

“Now here’s the Octopus! I’ll negotiate 

him first! If you hear me call-” And 

then her breathless signal: “I’ve survived 
him! Your turn!” 

The Octopus was much harder to “ nego¬ 
tiate ” alone, but Carol did it. There was the 
tiny fireplace she and Joyce had built to dem¬ 
onstrate their skill in woodcraft. Carol hur¬ 
ried on. Why did everything have to remind 
her of Joy? She passed the broad stone Joyce 
had nicknamed the “ model’s throne ” after 
they had both posed on it. Carol swallowed 
something that hurt. She came suddenly to 
the little clearing from where you could look 
down upon Hillcrest and Parkview. It wasn’t 
the summit of High Hill, by any means, but 
even from here things looked very small, even 
the stately Hillcrest tower every loyal Hill- 
crest girl was proud of. It didn’t seem any¬ 
thing to be proud of from here. Nothing did. 
And it was so terribly still! Carol caught her 
breath. She had never been lonely on High 
Hill before, but then she had never climbed it 



THE PRIZE WINNERS 


227 


alone. With Miss Nita and the girls, with 
Joyce it had been different. 

Joyce! Couldn’t she forget even up here? 
Wouldn’t she ever forget? And wouldn’t she 
ever be able to say: “ It’s all over, and it’s all 
right”? But it wasn't all right! Her picture 
—Carol shook herself. Joyce had had a pic¬ 
ture, too! Why couldn’t she remember that? 
And that Joy had sacrificed it also. And why 
couldn’t she remember that friend-ship—oh, 
she was remembering it! She couldn’t forget 
it! And Mrs. Lancy had said that the ship 
would be safe, because she, Carol, would 
understand! She hated to disappoint Mrs. 
Lancy, but- 

And she hated herself more for not saying 
anything to drive the awful look out of Joy’s 
eyes. And—and—it did look a silly little inci¬ 
dent from up here. But it was like a little 
leak—oh, why couldn’t she forget that friend¬ 
ship story? She shivered in the chill wind. 
The sun was almost down. She must go back 
to Hillcrest. 

Even the downward trail didn’t help, al¬ 
though it managed to trip her more than once. 





228 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


She was thoroughly ashamed of herself, but 
she could not—she could not go on to Joy! 

The sun was nearly gone when she reached 
the road, but it was filling the west with a gold 
light that fell over everything, “ touching 
earth with rest.” 

“ The color of love! ” Carol thought bitterly. 
“ How could God send that to-night? ” She 
wanted to turn and run away from it, but she 
couldn’t seem to do that either. The world 
seemed to be waiting for something. And then 
a small green cloud shot suddenly over the per¬ 
fect gold, and a little cry escaped Carol. Oh, 
it was cruel such a tiny thing should spoil that 
lovely sunset! Was it something like that that 
had happened to hers and Joy’s friend-ship? 
But the sunset wasn’t spoiled. Gradually it 
deepened into rose, blotting the little cloud 
from sight, then spread out like crimson ban¬ 
ners—crimson, the color of battle. Carol’s two 
hours were very nearly gone, but it was then 
that she did turn her back on the sunset and 
run down the streets. 

Phyllis still sat in the corner. Joyce had 
left the piano and was huddled up on the 



THE PRIZE WINNERS 


229 


couch. And Phyllis was listening to the stately 
old clock in the hall count off the minutes: 

“ Tick-tock, not—yet, not yet, not—yet— 
not—yet—not—yet! Tick-tock, not—yet— 
not—yet—not—yet! ” 

And then the door of the hall opened and let 
in a low beam of golden light, and a voice was 
saying: 

“Joy! Oh—oh—Joy! I’ve been as horrid 
as a girl could be, but will you try—to forgive 
me—and forget? ” 

“ Carol! ” Unbelieving joy flashed into 
Joyce’s voice. “ Carol! Is—is it really you? ” 

“ Yes. Oh, Joy, I’ve been horrible! I-” 

“ I—I think you’ll have to do some of the 
forgiving. I was pretty hateful myself. You 

know I was. And I did—forfeit-” 

“ Stop it! ” Carol’s hand stopped the words. 
“ What do I care about a picture? ” 

“ But how—how did you know-” mar¬ 

veled Joyce. 

Phyllis remained very still in her deep chair 
in the shadowy corner, but Carol laughed 
softly. 

“ Phyllis told me.” 


















230 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“Phyl!” Joyce whirled towards the corner. 
“Phyl!” 

Phyllis had always been dreaming what it 
would be like to have friends, but she had never 
guessed she would want to cry because Joyce 
on one side was saying: “ You’re a brick, 
Phyl! No—you’re a whole lighthouse of 
them, for you certainly saved that ship! ” and 
Carol on the other: “ Phyllis—oh, you—you 
darling! ” 

“ But I got the Prize after all!” Joyce 
triumphed, “ for I’ve got your friendship 
again! ” 

a We both won the Prize,” Carol said 
swiftly, “ for we’ve got each other! ” 

And, outside, the battle-banners in the sky 
had turned entirely into the color for victory, 
before they faded into night! 




CHAPTER XVIII 


THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 

“ Oh, some may sing October’s glow, 

Of June and sunshine-time, 

But let me have the ice and snow 
Of February mine!” 

caroled Phyllis, flying down the Lancy stairs. 
She stopped long enough to pat the smooth 
surface of her slender skis before she flew 
kitchenward to help Aunt Margaret bake the 
waffles. Who could help singing to-day? 

“It is splendiferous!” Joyce agreed, her 
cheeks like poppies, after a hasty trip to con¬ 
sult the thermometer. “ The meadow will be 
gorgeous to ski in, and Edmons Hill—with 
this crust—can’t you feel that toboggan fly, 
Phyl? ” 

Phyllis nodded, her eyes bright. 

“ But you’d better enter the Amateur Ski¬ 
ing Event at the Carnival, I think, if you’re 
going to do anything. You’re really a wonder, 

231 



232 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Phyl! You act as if you’d always lived on 
skis! I’d love it if you could beat Sally or 
Dara! They’ve won for the Hillcrestites two 
years, and it’s time we Parkviewers got 
some chance! ” 

“ Beat Dara, Joy? ” Phyllis gasped. She, 
beat Dara Knight, Dara, w 7 ho had boldly 
taken a jump at which even Miss Jackson had 
hesitated, three days before, and had come fly¬ 
ing down the long hill like a beautiful figure 
of victory! 

Joyce nodded calmly. “ I certainly would 
like you very much if you did, my dear cousin. 
And you’re going out on that meadow right 
after classes and practise. This storm was aw¬ 
fully obliging to come along just now. But 
when I heard that rain last night-” 

“ Did you weep? ” Jerry had appeared on 
the scene. “ I hope you’re making plenty of 
waffles, Phyl. Did you weep, Joy? I remem¬ 
ber you did something of the kind last year 
when the rest of us were rejoicing because a 
promising young snow-storm had turned into 
rain. You weren’t here, then, Phyllis. She 
interviewed the thermometer about every six 



THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 233 


seconds, and in between she’d say, 4 Daddy, 
don’t you think the wind will change? ’ and 
whenever I came in that night, 4 Jerry, is it 
still snowing? ’ ” 

Joyce turned her back squarely on him. 
44 Mumsie, may we stay at Hillerest after 
school ? Phy 1 has simply got to practise in that 
meadow, and if I’m going to steer that to¬ 
boggan -” 

Aunt Margaret nodded, laughingly. 44 Yes, 
if you’ll promise to stop on your way home, 
and ask Mrs. Harrison for that special recipe 
of orange cake she promised me.” 

44 So you’re going to be busy, this afternoon, 
Phyl? ” Jerry asked at the breakfast-table, a 
little later. 44 1 was going to ask you if you’d 
object to being prescribed as a pill—a story- 
pill to Miss Ivay Sherwin, but-” 

44 She can’t go!” Joyce answered for her. 
44 She’s got to win that Amateur Skiing Event 
between the Plillcrestites and the Parkviewers, 
and she has to 'practise this afternoon! ” 

Phyllis laughed gaily. Phyllis was quite 
willing to practise for that Skiing Event! She 
was very grateful to December for providing 




234 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


such an unusual quantity of snow before 
Christmas, and to Uncle Rob for selecting 
such beautiful skis! She couldn’t quite under¬ 
stand it, any more than the rest of Hillcrest 
did, but, after her first two or three spills, Hill- 
crest suddenly discovered that the shy, hesitat¬ 
ing, embarrassed Phyllis had disappeared, and 
a new, poised, confident, alive girl stood in 
her place, a girl who seemed to know in¬ 
stinctively the proper way to ski, a girl who 
was very much at home on her slender run¬ 
ners. Phyllis had a private little theory to ac¬ 
count for it, a theory which made her dimple 
sometimes. Surely an Icicle ought to be right 
in her element when it came to skiing or skat¬ 
ing, oughtn’t she? 

The freezing rain of the night before, fol¬ 
lowing the feathery all-day snow, had cer¬ 
tainly succeeded in giving the world a fairy 
aspect. Every tree was clad in a shining, 
transparent armor, and each shrub had its 
share in the glistening load. Even the streets 
had fairy pavements instead of the prosaic 
stone, and the fields Phyllis and Joyce passed 
through, going towards Hillcrest on their skis, 


THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 235 


looked as if some flower fairy had overheard 
the poor, ugly, stiff, bare weeds wishing that 
they might help make the world lovely for 
Christmas, for every one was robed in the 
softest gown of snow lace that could be im¬ 
agined. Phyllis thought she had never seen 
such white snow in all her life, and the sky— 
the sky was a perfectly marvelous clear blue! 

Half-way to Hillcrest, they stopped with 
one accord. 

“ Oh-h! " said Phyllis softly. 

“ I agree with you perfectly, Phyl,” Joyce 
tried to laugh, but her breath seemed to want 
to catch somewhere instead. 

From a little summit they had looked down, 
and, suddenly, every tree had burst into color, 
—rose, blue, green, orange, opal. Even the 
telegraph-wires flamed and sparkled with 
them. 

Joyce finally moved reluctantly. “ We’ll 
be late if we don’t hurry.” 

They didn’t say anything the rest of the 
way. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. 

In the cloak-room, Phyllis encountered Elli- 
nor Sherwin. “Isn’t it perfect!” she 


236 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


breathed. “ Are you coming to the meadow 
this afternoon? ” 

Ellinor shook her head soberly. “ I can’t. 
My little sister has been having laryngitis, a 
pretty bad case, and she isn’t very strong yet, 
and I’ll have to go home and entertain her, 
though it seems to me I’m all thought out.” 

But Ellinor’s eyes were very wistful, Phyllis 
noticed sympathetically. And when she must 
be wanting to practise for that Carnival— 
Ellinor could ski- 

She must be aching to have that lovely, 

buoyant, breathless, flying sensation- And 

for the sake of the “ Parkview-ites ” at Hill- 
crest, she ought not to waste this lovely after¬ 
noon. 

Phyllis met her later in the school Library. 
“ Ellinor,” she said softly, “ if I went and en¬ 
tertained Kay, you could stay and ski, and you 
really ought to, because we Parkviewers want 
you to win that Skiing Event. Won’t you let 
me, please? ” 

Ellinor was shaking her head. “ Thanks a 
lot, Phyl, but I couldn’t let you do that! 
Why, you mustn’t lose this afternoon either! ” 




THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 237 

“But I don’t matter as much as you do! 
Please, I really want to do it, Ellinor! And 
I truly love children.” 

Ellinor laughed. “ You’re awfully kind, 
Phyllis, but I really couldn’t let you do it.” 

Phyllis looked away, some of the exultation 
given her by the morning a little dimmed. 
She fixed her attention firmly on the portrait 
of Evelyn Marie Sterns, the first Principal of 
Hillcrest, hanging over the fireplace. Why 
did the girls always object to letting her help 
them? 

A hand reached out and touched hers. 
Ellinor’s steady brown eyes smiled into hers. 
“ I honestly believe you meant what you said, 
Phyl-” 

Phyllis whirled. “ Why, why, of course I 
did!” 

“ It seems a shame to let you, but—you’re 
a dear, Phyllis Lancy, and if you actually want 
to exchange skiing for entertaining my cranky 
tyrant of a sister, you have my blessings, and 
to-morrow I’ll teach you some of my own 
special ski-jumps. We Parkviewers have 
simply got to beat the Hillcrestites this year! 




238 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Though, I must warn you, Kay has a sweet 
temper! She threw her toy cook-stove at your 
cousin this morning. Now , do you want to 

go?” 

Phyllis laughed, the shining light back in 

her eyes. 

“ Yes, I want to know what she’ll do to 
me!” 

“I’m not going to ski to-day,” she told 
Joyce when she had the chance. “ I’m go¬ 
ing to do Ellinor a favor this afternoon, and 
she’s going to give me a few jumping lessons 
to-morrow.” 

“ Peggy—Baby—Maud-” Joyce was 

counting the girls she was selecting as passen¬ 
gers on her toboggan. “ Enid—Patsy- 

All right, Phyl. And, say, Phyl, would you 
mind stopping at Mrs. Harrison’s for that rec¬ 
ipe on your way home?—Bee, Alicia-” 

Phyllis laughed; but it was hard to turn 
away from the tantalizing snowy slopes cov¬ 
ered with gay, laughing figures and go down 
through the level streets to the Sherwin home; 
and little Kay Sherwin was as cross as a child 
who was a prisoner with laryngitis, while her 







THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 239 


playmates were having a glorious time coast¬ 
ing beneath her windows, could be. 

Kay’s doll-house looked as if it had been hit 
by a tornado; she had undressed every one of 
her dolls, and their clothes lay in a heap, with 
her paint-box and her books and blocks in the 
exact middle of the floor. She glared at her 
visitor as Phyllis stood hesitating in the door, 
wondering, now that she was here, what she 
could say that wouldn’t antagonize the small 
savage on the floor. 


“ Go ’way! ” shrieked Kay. “ Don’t want 
to see you! ” 

Phyllis shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid 
you’ll have to; Dr. Lancy thought you ought 
to have a Story-Pill, and I’m the Story- 
Pill.” 

Kay reached over for a block, but Phyllis 
had played with the temperamental Kits too 
often to be daunted by a block. When Mrs. 
Sherwin and Kay’s grandmother looked in, an 
hour later, they saw a most astonishing sight. 
Somebody had made a little room out of the 
red-and-white stone blocks, and Kay was busy 
finishing a throne-like chair with tiny blue 


240 


THE “ ICICLE 55 MELTS 


ones, being very careful not to disturb the 
small doll in the center of it. 

“ Now you must know,” Phyllis was saying 
in a very important-sounding voice, “ that 
when the Months made the awful discovery’ 
that every single one of the family had flowers 
but December, well, there was a great to-do in 
their castle, I can tell you! 

Something must be done about it at 
once! ’ blustered March. ‘ I tell you, my dear 
brothers and sisters, something must be done 
immediately! ’ 

Aye! ’Tis a disgrace to the family! ’ ex- 
claimed April, and straightway began to cry. 

u ‘To be sure, something must certainly be 
done! ’ said June, tenderly, ‘ think of it! Not 
having any flowers! ’ 

“And then July jumped up. ‘Come on! 
We’ll take her to the Flower Fairy! She gave 
us our flowers! She’s just forgotten you, De¬ 
cember.’ 

But I have such a lot of snow—and—ice,’ 
began December. 

“‘November has a flower!’ said July 
firmly. ‘ I guess you can have one, too! ’ 




THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 241 

“ So they wended their way up to the Castle 
of the Flower Fairy.” 

“Look!” whispered Mrs. Sherwin, and 
squeezed Grandmother’s hand. 

The Months were wending their way up to 
the Flower Fairy’s castle. January was the 
smallest, a tiny doll in a teddy-bear suit. 
February held a tiny flag. July was a long- 
legged boy doll with a bright red skin. 

“ And they knelt before the Flower Fairy’s 
throne,” Phyllis was going on, “ make them 
kneel, Kay!” And the watchers saw Kay 
gravely bend each doll forward. “ And when 
the Flower Fairy saw them, she cried, ‘ Why, 
dear Months, what is the matter? I gave you 
all flowers! You must do the rest! ’ 

“‘But you didn’t! Oh, dearest Flower 
Fairy, you didn’t!’ cried all the Months to¬ 
gether. ‘You didn’t! You forgot Decem¬ 
ber!’ 

“ And the Flower Fairy wrinkled up her 
forehead, and she said: ‘December? Decem¬ 
ber? Which of you is December? ’ 

“ The Months pushed December in front of 
them, for she had been so frightened that she 


242 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

was back of them all! ‘ Here she is! She has 

Christmas! ’ 

“ ‘ Christmas ! 9 said the Flower Fairy, and 
looked at December very hard. ‘ Christmas 
ought to have a flower, but I haven’t anything 
pretty enough. I’ll have to make one. Now 
go home, all of you.’ 

“ ‘ I told you she’d forgotten! ’ said July. 

“ And December was very happy, and then 
she was very frightened. Suppose—suppose 
the Flower Fairy should forget? But she 
didn’t. When next Christmas came, Decem¬ 
ber had a flower,—a big, soft, red flower, and, 
so people would always know it was a Christ¬ 
mas flower, the Flower Fairy made it like a 
star-” 

Phyllis stopped suddenly, almost as breath¬ 
less as if she had just come down Edmons Hill, 
and her cheeks were flaming the color of the 
poinsettia on Kay’s little white table. She 
had glanced up just at the end of her story to 
see the two listeners in the door. 

“What-” began Kay. “O—oo, 

Grandma! Come and see it! This is the 
Flower Fail’s castle, and I made it all my- 





THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 243 


self, and here’s the paint-box for her to paint 
the flowers—I don’t want you to go, Phyl! ” 
Phyllis had leaped to her feet, and was 
reaching for her hat. 

“ Won’t you stay and have tea with 
Kay? ” Mrs. Sherwin hastened to ask. 
“ We’d love to have you, and then we could 
tell you how much we enjoyed your story.” 

“ I don’t want you to go! ” Kay was clamor¬ 
ing. “ I want-” 

But Phyllis was fastening her coat. 

“ If I didn’t go, Kay, I couldn’t come back 
again,” she explained reasonably. 44 Thank 
you, Mrs. Sherwin, but I have an errand or 
two I must do for Aunt Margaret now.” 

The sunset was flaming in the sky, and the 
long, intensely blue shadows were falling 
across the snow when Phyllis arrived at the 
Harrison home. Baby, still in her toboggan¬ 
ing things, opened the door. 44 Come on in, 
Phyl. I’ll call Mother. Neil, will you please 
try to stop playing chess solitaire and enter¬ 
tain Phyl while I get Mother! Did you ever 
hear of such an interesting game in your life, 
Phyl? ” 



244 


THE 44 ICICLE ” MELTS 


Phyllis always wished she could stop feel¬ 
ing shy and embarrassed when she was in the 
presence of Baby’s invalid brother. Joyce and 
Ellinor and Carol weren’t, but somehow, al¬ 
though Phyllis knew he was much better, and 
would probably be well within a year or two, 
she always had an unaccommodating lump in 
her throat when she saw him sitting so very 
quietly in his wheel-chair. And he was playing 
chess—“ chess solitaire,” when all the rest of 
Parkview was getting ready for its annual ice 
carnival! 

Neil moved a knight calmly, and grinned up 
at Phyllis. 

“ You ought to be glad some one in the 
family has brains enough to invent a thing like 
chess solitaire, Baby. Only the very intelli¬ 
gent play chess, anyway. I’ll wager Phyllis 
does.” 

“ Why—I used to, with my grandfather,” 
Phyllis admitted. 

Neil gave a little whoop. “ I knew it! My 
dear Miss Lancy, will you sit down and let me 
see if you can beat me? ” 

Baby told Joyce afterward that, after the 




THE BUSINESS OF AN ICICLE 245 


shock of seeing Phyllis open her mouth as if 
she was going to say “ Oh, no, I couldn’t!” 
and then suddenly nod and sit down opposite 
Neil, positively nothing could surprise her! 

Half an hour later Mrs. Harrison came 
softly in and looked over Phyllis’ shoulder. 
Phyllis, her cheeks very pink, had just cap¬ 
tured Neil’s queen. 

“Farewell, your Majesty,” Neil observed, 
and then, after a long minute, “ still, I think 
we can have revenge on your captor.” His 
fingers closed over Phyllis’ knight. 

“ I hoped you’d do that! ” Phyllis moved a 
pawn. “Check!” 

“Of all the dumb-bell things to do!” 
groaned Neil. 

“ I’m awfully sorry to interrupt,” Mrs. 
Harrison broke in, “ but Mrs. Lancy was be¬ 
ginning to be worried about you, Phyllis, and 
she says if you want the scalloped oysters they 
are going to have, you’d better come home! ” 

Phyllis jumped to her feet guiltily. “ I 
didn’t know it was getting so late,” her voice 
was contrite. “ I wouldn’t have worried Aunt 
Margaret.” 


246 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ For a girl, you really play a very neat 
game,” Neil drawled. “ May I have the 
pleasure of beating you again soon? ” 

“ Yes,” Phyllis reached for her gloves, and 
then laughed. “ But you didn't beat me, and 
you won’t, if I can help it.” 

Baby closed the door behind her and then 
came back and sank down upon the floor. 

“ I’m glad I saw it myself! I never would 
have believed—poor Phyl’s always acted as if 
you might bite her!—and she’s always such a 
little Icicle-” 

Neil was replacing the chess-men in their 
box. “ Icicles,” he observed, “ have been 
known to melt.” 



CHAPTER XIX 


TO WARM THE HEARTS OF LONELY MORTALS 

Phyllis took a cautious look down the hall. 
There was no one in sight. 

She gave a joyous little laugh and, despite 
her dignity as a junior—or more of a junior 
than she was of anything else—she started to 
skip. She couldn’t walk—not to-day! She 
had never dreamed—even now it didn’t seem 
real! Had Hillcrest really chosen her as its 
Chairman of Christmas Music? It seemed so. 
Most of the girls she met that day had con¬ 
gratulated her, or, if there wasn’t time for that, 
had managed to flash her a quick smile of 
understanding. 

Phyllis hadn’t known about that position 
until that morning in Assembly when Miss 
Anderson announced that “ In accordance 
with a custom of several years’ standing, the 
Student Committee of the school has selected 
Chairmen for the various Christmas Commit¬ 
tees. The Pageant Committee has for its 

247 


/ 



248 


THE 44 ICICLE ” MELTS 


Chairman, Ellinor Sherwin; the Christmas 
Card Committee, Babina Harrison; Christmas 
Decorations and Entertainment Committee, 
Dara Ivnight; the Christmas Music Commit¬ 
tee -” 

“ That will be Blanche Penrose,” Phyllis 
had thought. Blanche was pretty and popu¬ 
lar, one of the girls Phyllis had always envied 
because she was a born leader. And she had 
another recommendation. She could sing. 
And then the room spun around suddenly. 
Phyllis caught the chair ahead of her. 

The name of the Christmas Music Chair¬ 
man was Phyllis Lancy. 

“ But—but—I—don’t know how! ” she pro¬ 
tested afterwafd. 

Joyce looked at her with affection which she 
managed to conceal by being scornful. “ What 
don’t you know how to do? Sing? ” 

“ Don’t worry, Phyl, it won’t be so bad,” 
Dara observed. 

Phyllis wasn’t worrying. She couldn’t have 
worried if she had tried. Not after the Ice 
Carnival two days ago—it gave her an awfully 
funny feeling yet to think that she had beaten 







“ THE HEARTS OF LONELY MORTALS ” 249 

Sally Price and even Dara in the Amateur 

Skiing Event! —and now—this morning- 

Joy had probably gone home, but Phyllis 
didn’t care. She went skipping on light feet 
down the corridor. Half-way down she nearly 
bumped into a small girl who slipped suddenly 
from a near-by corner. 

“ I beg your pardon! ” Phyllis would have 
laughed to anybody that afternoon! 

“ I’m afraid I wasn’t looking quite where I 
was going! Why—what—can I do anything 
for you, Dorrie? ” 

The little freshman lifted wide and fright¬ 
ened eyes. “ Thorny—Miss Hawthorn’s cry¬ 
ing! ” she whispered. 

" Crying! ” 

“ Ssh! She’ll hear! Y r es she is! I went 
back for my note-book I forgot, and her head 
was on her desk and she was crying ”—Doris 
shivered—“ terribly! I didn’t dare go in! ” 

Phyllis walked slowly to the half-open door 
of Miss Hawthorn’s classroom. Doris was 
certainly right, and the shaking sobs sounded 
as if Thorny Path might have been wanting to 
cry for some time. 








250 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Shall—I go tell Lady Elizabeth? ” Doris 
whispered fearfully. Phyllis shook her head. 

“ Go on away,” she said softly, “I’m going 
in.” 

“ Go—going in? ” 

Phyllis pushed the door open very gently. 

“ Excuse me, Miss Hawthorn, I wanted-” 

she broke off with an “ Oh! ” that was genuine 
in its startled embarrassment. The expression 
on Thorny Path’s face was not exactly 
friendly. “ What—what is it? Are you sick? ” 

Miss Hawthorn looked more of a “ thorny 
path ” than Phyllis had ever seen her look. “ I 
am not ill, Miss Lancy. What did you wish? ” 

“ The—the reference for to-morrow’s les¬ 
son.” 

“ And your cousin could not supply it, I 
presume? ” 

Phyllis flushed guiltily, although she had 
forgotten just which poem of Scott’s Miss 
Hawthorn had mentioned. 

“ I d-didn’t think of that! ” 

“ So it would appear. You juniors do not 
seem to have a habit of thinking. Get what 
you wish as quickly as possible, please.” 





“ THE HEARTS OF LONELY MORTALS ” 251 

Phyllis obediently crossed the room and 
searched for her own note-book. She was 
angry with herself for having come in. Dara 
was right. Nobody could like Thorny Path. 
But when she reached the door, she looked 
hack. There was a discouraged droop to Miss 
Hawthorn’s shoulders. Phyllis felt a pang of 
pity. Perhaps these last four months had been 
a thorny path to Thorny Path herself. And— 
somehow—she didn’t look as if anybody had 
ever really loved her. It would be hard to love 
a Thorny Path, but—Phyllis had been an 
Icicle. The unbending look about Miss Haw¬ 
thorn’s back wasn’t encouraging, but, with a 
hand on the knob of the door, Phyllis spoke 
again: 

“ Are—are you sure there is nothing I can 
do, Miss Hawthorn? ” 

Miss Hawthorn turned in her seat and 
looked Phyllis up and down. “ Perhaps you 
could assist me in one way, but you probably 
wouldn’t care to.” 

“ Oh, yes, I would! ” cried Phyllis rashly. 
“ What is it, please?” 

“ You can—if you will—tell me what is the 




252 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


matter with your class during its history 
period.” 

Phyllis flushed as guiltily as if she, and not 
Dara Knight, were responsible for the juniors’ 
mysterious behavior. 

“ I see you can. Well, do you regret your 
hasty offer of assistance? ” 

Miss Hawthorn knew Phyllis well enough 
to recognize “ The Lancy Tilt.” Phyllis was 
wishing miserably that she had stayed on the 
other side of the door in safety; Miss Haw¬ 
thorn’s searching eyes were uncomfortable. 

“ Do you know Miss Dara Knight well. 
Miss Lancy? ” 

Phyllis guessed what was coming. “ I—I 
am a day-pupil, you know, Miss Haw¬ 
thorn -” 

Thorny Path frowned. “ That does not 
matter. You hear her recite. You have heard 
her recite history in this room for nearly four 
months, have you not? ” 

Phyllis nodded, stifling a giggle. Dara’s 
recitations, since she had vowed to be “ nice ” 
to Thorny Path, were very nearly works of 
art! 



* THE HEARTS OF LONELY MORTALS ” 253 


“ And you heard her when Miss Farendale 
was here? ” 

Phyllis nodded again. She did not feel like 
giggling now. 

“ I will be frank with you, Miss Lancy. I 
liked Miss Knight, and I thought she liked me. 
I could not understand—I find I do not under¬ 
stand a good deal lately, why her classmates 
always appeared so amused when I called upon 
her to recite. Her blunders were absurd, of 
course, but it did not strike me as amusing to 
see a girl so evidently struggling over a recita¬ 
tion.” A dull red crept up Thorny Path’s 
cheeks. “ I think I said so once or twice, did 
I not? ” 

Phyllis swallowed. “ Yes.” 

“ It never occurred to me until this morning, 
when I suggested to Miss Anderson that Miss 
Knight be dropped to the sophomore class for 
a more thorough grounding in history, and she 
advised that I glance over the records, that 
anything might be wrong.” 

She stopped at a little sound from Phyllis. 
Phyllis was in danger of choking. T)ara 
dropped to the sophomore class! Carol had 



254 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


warned her she had passed the limit when she 
had lifted questioning eyes to Miss Hawthorn’s 
and innocently and regretfully said she “ was 
very stupid, she knew, but would Miss Haw¬ 
thorn please tell her who Henry Eighth’s last 
two wives had been—she could only remember 
six? ” And then had added, when Miss Haw¬ 
thorn grimly remarked that that was the entire 
list, and most people thought it long enough, 
“ Then why does history speak of him as 
Henry Eighth? ” 

“ My discoveries were interesting. But can 
you tell me why a student of Miss Knight’s 
excellent standing should choose to waste a 
teacher’s time, talent, and patience by pretend¬ 
ing such absurd ignorance? ” 

Phyllis felt as if she had somehow gotten 
into the inquisition. 

“ I—I think—perhaps—she was trying to 
be funny.” 

“ It must have been very amusing! ” Miss 
Hawthorn’s voice was sarcastic. “ But all my 
classes have been—shall we say ‘ entertain¬ 
ing ’ ?—Miss Lancy, do you know of a conspir¬ 
acy among the pupils to have me resign? ” 




“ THE HEARTS OF LONELY MORTALS ” 255 

Phyllis colored hotly, but she shook her head 
violently. “No! Miss Hawthorn! I am 
sure-” 

“ You might ask Miss Knight about it when 
you tell her I am going to resign. I am sure 
she will be delighted to hear that I am.” 

“Oh, no, no!” cried Phyllis vehemently. 
“ Please don’t resign just yet, Miss Haw¬ 
thorn! Please don’t! Y r ou haven’t understood 
us very well, that’s all! ” 

“Why? So my classes may have further 
opportunities to ‘ entertain ’ and ‘ amuse ’ 
me? ” 

Miss Hawthorn certainly had the knack of 
saying things. Phyllis had hard work remem¬ 
bering the discouraged droop of her shoulders. 

“Why should I stay? None of my classes 
like me. I confess I don’t like them. When I 
first taught, history was a sober and serious 
study, not like your ‘ Miss Nita’s ’ play- 
methods. I thought possibly I should like to 
teach in another school, but I’ve proved myself 
a failure. I shall resign as soon as possible.” 

A failure! Thorny Path felt that way, too! 
And yet, under it all, she was a good teacher. 



256 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


She mustn’t go! Phyllis became serious at 
once, and said, earnestly: 

44 Please, Miss Hawthorn, don’t resign 
—not just yet! Please wait another month. 
And please try to understand us. Dara didn’t 
mean to—hurt—anybody. She was just try¬ 
ing—to—to—trying to-” 

44 To be 4 entertaining,’ ” said Miss Haw¬ 
thorn. 

Phyllis sighed. “ Yes. But she didn’t 
mean to hurt you.” 

“ Didn’t she? 4 Thorny Path ’ is a pleasant 
little name, is it not? Well, I am afraid I am 
not the right teacher for ITillcrest.” 

Phyllis was amazed at the sadness in Thorny 
Path’s voice. 44 1 thought I should like it, but 
I find I do not understand things. I did not 
approve of Miss Farendale’s methods, and I 
wouldn’t know how to use them if I did. I am 
afraid I have been sarcastic at times—it is a 
habit of mine, and your constant mention of 
4 Miss Nita ’ made me angry. It will be best 
for me to go, my dear.” 

Perhaps it was the unconscious 44 my dear,” 
perhaps it was because Phyllis had traveled 








Her hand reaching out suddenly for Miss Hawthorn’s 

Paye 257. 



































“ THE HEARTS OF LONELY MORTALS ” 257 


through the Slough of Despond herself, but 
whatever the “ it ” was, she had a great wave of 
pity and understanding for Thorny Path. She 
leaned forward earnestly, her hand reaching 
out suddenly for Miss Hawthorn’s as it lay on 
her desk. “ It isn’t! It isn’t! You mustn’t 
resign! Oh, dear Miss Hawthorn, please wait 
a little longer! And—and if the girls begin to 
tease in class, why—why just try to tease them 
back! I think maybe I can make them under¬ 
stand! ” 

Nobody had ever coaxed Miss Hawthorn to 
postpone leaving a school before. She couldn’t 
remember a single pupil looking into her face 
with pleading, shining grey eyes, and an eager 
voice saying: “Please say you’ll wait! Just 
another month! ” It was a very odd sensation. 
It was so very odd that Thorny Path felt 
something inside her waver and promise. 

Phyllis’ exultation lasted almost to the 
cloak-room. Then the chilly realization of 
what she had done made her heart drop back 
where it belonged. 

Miss Hawthorn had promised to stay. 
Phyllis Lancy had promised to “ explain ” to 


258 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Hillcrest girls and make them “ understand! ” 
Understand! Why, they couldn’t! They 
didn’t know what it felt like to be an Icicle or 
a Thorny Path! And she had upset all Dara’s 
nicely-engineered plans. She, who wanted the 
girls to like her! “ If they can’t understand, 
they’re not worth having as friends,” her con¬ 
science tried to assure her. 

“ But I want them just the same! ” wailed 
Phyllis. “ Was Dara really planning to try 
and make Thorny Path re—oh, why did I have 
to meddle with Thorny Path’s affairs? ” 

She was pulling on her sweater when Baby 
came dashing into the cloak-room. “ We’ve 
been looking for you from the tower to the 
dungeon! ” she announced. “ Joy left a note 
for you on your hat. Didn’t you find it? 
We’re all up in Dara’s room. Come on! ” 

Up in Dara’s room! Dara was the last 
person she wanted to see that afternoon. “ I 
can’t, Baby-” 

Baby was propelling her towards the stairs. 
But the visiting hour was almost over; there 
couldn’t be many minutes left. 




CHAPTER XX 


THE PROMISE OF A LANCY 

They were all there,—Joy, Ellinor, Dara, 
Emmie. “ Come on in, Chairman of the 
Christmas Music! ” Dara made her a low curt¬ 
sey, “ this party’s in honor of all the Chairmen, 
and you never arrive until it’s almost too late! 
Where have you been? ” 

“ Yes, and what have you been doing with 
yourself? You look like an owl!” Joyce 
echoed with unflattering frankness. “ Most 
people think it’s an honor! Where have you 
been all this time? ” 

“ I’ve been with Thorn—with Miss Haw¬ 
thorn, and I do feel solemn.” 

“ With Thorny Path? You? What have 
you done? ” 

“ Nothing. Nothing more than the rest of 
you. Laughed at Dara’s being nice to her.” 

“ What did she say to you, Phyl? ” 

Dara suddenly turned away from her little 

259 



260 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


electric stove and paid attention. How did 

she find out? Is she—er-” 

“ She suggested to Lady Elizabeth that she 
drop you to the sophomore class, and Lady 
Elizabeth advised her to look at the records. 
She’s awfully disappointed in you, Dara.” 

Dara grinned, but she looked a trifle 
alarmed, at the same time. “ Did she say what 
she was going to do about it? ” 

“ Yes. She said she knew none of the other 
girls like her, and now she knew Dara—she 
would resign as soon as possible.” 

“Resign! Then we do need a celebration! 

Let’s see, what—how-” 

Phyllis shook her head in desperation. How 
could she explain that Thorny Path had grown 
just as tired and hurt and discouraged as Miss 
Nita would have done under the same circum¬ 
stances?—And a little more so, because Miss 
Nita would have understood, and poor Thorny 
Path didn’t. What had possessed her to 
promise to explain, anyhow? Why did she 
have to interfere with Miss Hawthorn’s busi¬ 
ness, anyway. 

Why, she had 'promised to do it, hadn’t 






THE PROMISE OF A LANCY 


261 


she, that night in the quiet Camp Fire room 
with only the candles and firelight, when she 
had chosen the name “ Fire Maiden,” and 
prayed that she would be “ with magic touch 
engifted to warm the hearts of lonely mor¬ 
tals”? But she had meant—well, she hadn’t 
meant a Miss Hawthorn! She had been think¬ 
ing of a girl who—but it was Miss Hawthorn 
who had come her way! And she had promised, 
and the promise of a Fancy—and she had 
promised her grandfather to remember the 
Lancy Honor; and she had promised Miss 
Nit a to try and be as nice to Miss Hawthorn, 
and now she had promised Miss Hawthorn! 

Oh, why had she done so much promising! 
She didn’t want to remember any of it! She 
wanted to turn her back on the Lancv Honor 
and keep it there! The girls looked blurry 
suddenly, and there was an uncomfortable 
thing, something like a burr, in her throat. 

“ Listen, girls, please,” she begged. “ I 
don’t believe you’ll like me afterward, hut—I 
asked Thorny—Miss Hawthorn to give us 
another chance. She’s going to stay another 
month.” 





262 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


Baby suddenly buried her head in Dara’s 
pet cushion. Lucy paused with a piece of her 
favorite fudge half raised. Dara nearly let the 
precious chocolate cake her mother had just 
sent slide to the floor. 

“ Give us another chance! Did the appoint¬ 
ment go to your head, child? ” 

Phyllis flushed miserably. 44 1 don’t know. 
I don’t know how to explain. She was crying, 
and she looked so—so miserable and dis¬ 
couraged. I don’t believe anybody's ever 
liked her! She liked Dara, and she thought 
Dara liked her, and then this afternoon when 
she found—Dara-” 

44 Go on about Dara.” Dara had set the 
cake down and was curling Baby’s hair about 
her finger. 

44 That’s all. I guess she was discouraged 
already, and that—and it hurt her because we 
talked so much about Miss Nita—she—she 
doesn’t know how to teach Miss Nita’s way, 
you see-” 

44 Yes, we have seen that,” Dara murmured 
gently. 

44 She’s awfully proud and un-get-at-able 




THE PROMISE OF A LANCY 


263 


and—everything. But really she doesn’t want 
to be a Thorny Path! And—then I said I’d 
try and explain to you girls and—then—per¬ 
haps things would be all right.” 

Dara was frowning absorbedly over Baby’s 
hair; Emmie carefully inspected her slippers; 
Joyce was surveying the dancing sunbeams on 
the snowy roof outside. The burr climbed 
higher in Phyllis’ throat. “ I—I wish I could 
make you understand! She doesn't want to be 
a Thorny Path at all! ” 

There was a very queer little silence in the 
room. “No?” said Dara. “ Did she tell you 
so, Phyl? ” 

Phyllis shook her head until she could speak. 
“ No! But I know! Y r ou see a boy called me 
an iceberg once, and it hurt dreadfully. I 
know how she feels. I didn’t want to be an 
iceberg. I wanted to talk and laugh and do 
the things other girls did, and I didn’t know 
how! Thorn—Miss Hawthorn’s like that!” 

“ So you promised to explain to us? That 
was nice of you! What do you want us to do 
now? Have my Entertainment Committee 
give her a party as an apology and a Christ- 




264 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


mas present—a nice historical one, everybody 
in costumes and things? ” 

Phyllis’ eyes began to get their shining light 
again. “ I think that would be lovely.” 

“ But would Thorny—I beg your pardon, 
‘Miss Hawthorn/ think so?” Dara’s voice 
was dangerously sweet. “ Would she ‘ under¬ 
stand 5 ? I don’t care to risk it. I suppose my 
history will have to improve, but as for a party 
with Thorny Path as a guest of honor, that is 
too much! ” 

Emmie giggled. 

“ I’m—I’m sorry.” 

“ We’re sorry, too,” Dora agreed politely, 
“ but we’ve never had the advantage of feeling 
like an iceberg, you see. Oh, are you going? 

So soon? My mother’s cake is-” 

“ I am.” The girl facing them looked very 
much like the “ nice, cool little iceberg ” Her¬ 
bert Richardon had described. “ Don’t you 
think I’ve stayed long enough? Good after¬ 
noon.” 

None of the girls answered, but, as the door 
closed, Phyllis caught Dara’s murmured 
“ Yes, your Lancyness,” and Emmie’s giggle. 




THE PROMISE OF A LANCY 


265 


She had failed once more! She never did any¬ 
thing else! She had given her most carefully 
guarded secret to those girls, and it had been 
of no use. She hadn’t made the girls under¬ 
stand about Thorny Path, and she hadn’t made 
Thorny Path understand about the girls. And 
—why, the girls must think she had been the 
tale-bearer! Oh, but she had made an awful 
muddle of things! Why under the sun hadn’t 
she waited for a more propitious time? But 
the girls wouldn’t trust her now. 

Oh, what was the use of trying to do any¬ 
thing for anybody? The best thing would 
have been to have let Miss Hawthorn resign. 
Well, she probably would after another month, 
and Phyllis had better resign with her. There 
wasn’t any use in proving yourself to be one 
failure after another! She was simply “ Phyl¬ 
lis the Iceberg,” and she probably always 
would be. Y r es, she would go home. That was 
the best place for failures. She would always 
have Joyce and Aunt Margaret and Uncle 
Rob and Jerry and Kits and Carol to remem¬ 
ber; and it wouldn’t matter to any one if she 
went home a failure, not at all. 



CHAPTER XXI 


THE CAMPAIGN ENDS 

Up in the green room, with the door locked 
and her back safely turned to the picture-Phyl- 
lis, Phyllis wrote a letter to “ The Chairman 
of the Committee for Improving Phyllis 
Lancy.” It was a blistering letter—in more 
ways than one, and there were holes where the 
pen had made little jabs, and a blot after the 
final “ Lancy.” Phyllis reached out for her 
box of wax. Sealing it like that would make 
it seem more final, somehow. Phyllis wanted 
it final. She was afraid if it wasn’t she might 
be tempted to break the resolutions she had 
made in it, and it would be silly to stay here 
now. She remembered a remark her grand¬ 
father had made once when, a stubborn little 
culprit, she had refused to ask Miss Patter¬ 
son’s pardon for an outbreak: “ Determina¬ 
tion to overcome mistakes is to be applauded; 
pigheadedness to ignore them is to be de- 

266 


THE CAMPAIGN ENDS 267 

spised.” And she would simply be pigheaded, 
if she didn’t acknowledge that coming to Park- 
view had been a mistake, wouldn’t she? 

The box of wax caught, somewhere. She 
gave a desperate little pull and it tumbled out, 
bringing with it the long, flat business-like en¬ 
velope containing her “ Campaign Outline,” 
with Jerry’s motto written across it. 

“ I Will Study and Prepare, and my Time Will 
Come.” 

Phyllis stared at it guiltily. Then she struck 
the match for the little candle. 

“ I Will Study and Prepare, and my Time Will 
Come.” 

She moved the envelope impatiently out of 
the way, but the match had gone out. A ray 
of soft sunshine slanted across the desk and 
fell across the single line on the big envelope. 

“ I Will Study and Prepare, and my Time Will 
Come.” 

Yes, but she had studied! She had studied 
and studied! She had tried, and her time 


268 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


was the Christmas Music Committee her 
“ time ” ? Oh, but they wouldn’t want her 
now! She was sure they wouldn’t! 

“ Phyllis! O-oh, Fhyl-lis! Phyl!” 

Phyllis held her breath. She was not sure 
she wanted to see anybody, and Jerry had an 
uncomfortable habit of seeing more than you 
wanted him to, sometimes! She was tempted 
to ignore the summons, but after all it wasn’t 
safe to try that sort of tactics with Doctor 
Jeremiah Lancy! 

Doctor Jeremiah Lancy was standing at the 
foot of the stairs. “ You were up there, 
weren’t you? I thought so. I’d like to turn a 
patient over to you, if you don’t mind.” 

Phyllis didn’t mind when she saw the patient 
was Kits,—Kits, with tears still on her fair 
lashes, doubtfully surveying a bandaged hand. 

“ What happened? ” 

Kits answered for herself. “ The kettle fell 
over on me.” 

“ Kits hadn’t had a burn in so long she 
wanted to know what they felt like again,” ob¬ 
served Jerry, “ so she got one as a birthday 
present.” 



THE CAMPAIGN ENDS 


269 


Kits sniffed suspiciously; and Kits never 
sniffed over trifles. But after the office door 
had closed upon Jerry and they were snuggled 
down on the soft rug in front of the cheerful- 
sounding fire—Phyllis reflected it was prob¬ 
ably the most cheerful thing in the room, Kits 
forgot about her damaged hand a little and 
began to unfold some of her birthday plans. 
She seemed a bit hazy over some of them, but 
Phyllis, cuddling the soft little body close, 
didn’t care. The occasions when the independ¬ 
ent Kits condescended to be cuddled were too 
rare to be lost! And Phyllis was in a mood 
for cuddling, herself! But, as for the birth¬ 
day, it appeared there was certainly going to 
be a cake, and a party, and Phyllis was to have 
an invitation. 

“Phyl! Phyllis! Where are you? Phyl!” 

“ If she stopped calling, she might find 
you,” Kits remarked justly, and the answering 
laugh in her voice made her cousin sound quite 
different from the Phyllis that Joyce had last 
heard. 

“ In the library, Joy! ” 

“ Oh.” Joyce, her cheeks, under the close- 



270 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


fitting green hat, rosy with the keen wind, a 
bunch of holly in her hands, framed against 
the dark curtains, was enough to give anybody 
a thorough Christmas thrill. 

“ Baby’s here,” was her wholly unnecessary 
remark, since Baby appeared beside her. “ She 
wants to know if you’ll help with the Christ¬ 
mas cards. I told her you would,” she added 
graciously, “ but she came to see for herself.” 

Phyllis stared blankly, and Baby laughed. 
“ You haven’t a very lucid (don’t you like that 
word, Phyl?) manner of explaining, Joy! I 
don’t suppose you do know, Phyl, but it’s a 
tradition at Hillcrest for us to make and buy 
our Christmas cards and folders at Hillcrest. 
The money goes to the Children’s Hospital, 
because that’s our pet charity, and I’m Chair¬ 
man of that this year. Joy and Carol are on 
it, to help with the picture part, and we 
thought maybe you’d help with the poetry side. 
You will, won’t you? You’ll be pretty busy 
with your own Committee, I suppose, but it 
won’t take you long to scribble a verse or two 
or three! Why, what’s the matter? ” 

Phyllis was struggling to hide the wave of 


THE CAMPAIGN ENDS 


271 


joy and doubts and hopes that was coming 
over her, and not succeeding especially well. 
“ You’re—you’re sure—you want me? ” she 
stammered incredulously. 

Baby colored. Suppose Phyllis wouldn’t 
accept this left-handed apology? “ Why—of 
course. What’s the trouble? ” 

“ N-nothing. Yes, I’ll do it, Baby! I’ll be 
glad to! ” 

“ You sound like Polly anna” remarked 
Joyce. “I’m going down-town to get some 
bristol-board and things for the cards, after 
I’ve seen Mumsie. See you later, Phyl.” 

Phyllis watched them disappear down the 
street and nearly forgot the listening Kits at 
her side. Kits, however, was not the kind to 
be ignored. “ They like you,” she announced. 
“ They like you lots.” 

Phyllis stared. “Who, child?” 

“Joy an’ Carol an’ Baby an’-” 

“ How—how do you know? ” 

“’Cause they told me so!” said Kits with 
triumph. “ The ovver day, when I was wait¬ 
ing for you to make Peter Hoehandle a new 
coat, they asked me if I liked you, and I said 





272 THE “ ICICLE 55 MELTS 

‘ ’Course! ’ And then I asked them did they 
like you?” 

Phyllis held her tight. “ And—and what 
did they say? ” 

“ I’m telling you! ” responded Kits, indig¬ 
nant at Phyllis’ very evident lack of patience. 
“Joy said ‘ Sure.’ And Baby said ‘ I’m be¬ 
ginning to have a ’piscion I do,’ and Carol 
said ‘ Like this.’ And she hugged me.—Oh, 
Phylms! You’re all cwying! What’s the 
matter? Is you sick? I’ll get Jerwy-” 

Phyllis caught her at the door. “ I’m not a 
bit sick, Kits! I’m going to tell you about 
Santa Claus!” 

Mrs. Saunders appeared before the story 
was finished—before the third telling was fin¬ 
ished, that is, and she and Aunt Margaret 
stood obligingly silent until St. Nicholas bade 
the world his final “ Merry—Christmas—to— 
all—and—to—all—a—good—night! ” 

“ I’m glad to have caught you, Phyllis.” 
Mrs. Saunders deftly untangled Kits, who was 
struggling to put her right arm into her left 
coat-sleeve. “ Kits told you about the lovely 
party we’re going to have, didn’t she, with ice- 








THE CAMPAIGN ENDS 


273 


cream snow-men, and a present for everybody 
from the Christmas tree? ” 

“ It’s the first birfday I’ve had in a whole 
year,” said Kits, “ and I wish it would hurry 
up!” 

“It certainly is!” agreed her mother. 
“ Would you object to coming over that after¬ 
noon and playing hostess to ten little tots? 
You know them all.” 

Kits had seen that queer look cross Phyllis’ 
face earlier in the afternoon, and it was not the 
first time Phyllis wished she had her cousin’s 
fluent vocabulary. All she could find to say 
was what she had said to Baby: “ But—but do 
you really want me? ” 

Mrs. Saunders calmly adjusted her daugh¬ 
ter’s hat. “ I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t,” 
she said. 

Aunt Margaret waved to Kits and her 
mother as they disappeared into the house op¬ 
posite, and then she turned to Phyllis. 

“ There’s a letter on the table for you that 
came with the mail just now, Phyllis.” 

Phyllis gazed at the typewritten, important¬ 
looking letter wonderingly, and then she slit it 


274 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


carefully and drew out the sheet with its head¬ 
ing “ Parkview Manor Free Public Library.” 

“ Miss Phyllis Lancy, 

Parkview. 

My dear Miss Lancy: 

I am very happy to tell you that, at the 
meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Park- 
view Manor Public Library which took place 
last evening, on the recommendation of Mr. 
A. W. Sherwin, the Board decided to offer you 
the opportunity to conduct a story-hour in the 
children’s room once every two weeks. The 
salary we are in a position to offer is not 
large—$12 a month, but if you find yourself 
interested in such work, it may prove good 
practice. Will you kindly let me know if you 
care to take charge of this story-hour? 

Cordially yours, 

Roland Crowell.” 

Phyllis stood still, an almost frightening 
wave of joy clutching her heart as tightly as 
her fingers clutched the paper, and then sud¬ 
denly she was flying up the stairs to the refuge 
of the green room. When she saw it now, 
something about it made her know she could 
never have left it—not the way she had 



THE CAMPAIGN ENDS 


275 


planned! If she went she would have no Joyce- 
painted furniture, no sunny Aunt-Margaret- 
made hangings, no private window-seat and 
book-shelves Uncle Rob had built especially 
for her, and there certainly would be no trifle- 
frayed rug with the spot where Phyllis had 
spilled a queer concoction the day she surrep¬ 
titiously tried to learn fudge-making over the 
little electric stove Grandfather had sent her, 
and no garden lying outside her windows. The 
letter to the “ Chairman of the Committee for 
Improving Phyllis Lancy ” lay face down¬ 
ward on the floor, and the picture-Phyllis 
smiled down on it. Phyllis was suddenly very 
much ashamed of that letter. 

Miss Hawthorn might continue to be sar¬ 
castic, her pupils might desire to aggravate 
her; very well, they could. The girls might cut 
her for her inopportune rush to Thorny Path’s 
defense. They could. Miss Hawthorn might 
resign if she wished to, but the person named 
Phyllis Lancy intended fighting things out! 


CHAPTER XXII 


PHYLLIS HEARS OF A FAERY PRINCESSE 

But fighting things out did prove a trifle 
harder than Phyllis had expected. She had 
not bargained on Blanche Penrose’s cool re¬ 
fusal to act on the Music Committee, or on the 
tepid enthusiasm of the Committee she did 
finally manage to assemble. She was unhap¬ 
pily aware of their polite indifference to her 
tentative plans. She had taken them into the 
Camp Fire room for their meeting, and the 
little fire throwing dancing lights around the 
furnishings, and the snowflakes softly tapping 
on the window-panes, were doing their best to 
make the setting effective, but, somehow, it 
didn’t seem to affect the Committee, and Phyl¬ 
lis sensed that, somewhere, her appeal was fail¬ 
ing. 

“You see, girls, I’ve never done anything 
like this before,” she explained, looking around 
the politely listening circle, and feeling they 
were all very far away from her. “ I haven’t 

276 


A FAERY PRINCESSE 


277 


even been at Hillcrest at Christmas time 
before. If I’m not doing things right, you’ll 
tell me, won’t you? And please give me some 
of your ideas! ” 

“ Oh, things will go all right,” Mary Hed- 
den said indifferently. 

“ They always have, I guess,” Lucy added 
with a giggle. “ I shouldn’t worry if I were 
you.” 

“ Mrs. Hilton usually helps you, if you ask,” 
the sophomore member contributed. 

Only little Doris Reade, the freshman who 
had adored Phyllis since the day she first heard 
her sing in chapel, responded. She cast the 
rest of the Committee a glance of scorn which 
they didn’t mind in the least, and slipped a 
friendly little hand into her Chairman’s. “ Of 
course I’ll help—if you’ll tell me how! I’ll 
find out what Christmas music our class likes, 
and who can sing. Of course we’re only fresh¬ 
men -” the coolness of the atmosphere was 

beginning to have its effect on her, too. 

“ You belong to Hillcrest just as much as 
the rest of us,” Phyllis assured her swiftly. 
“Don’t they, girls?” 




278 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Naturally,” said Mary, with a dry little 
smile. 

“ Committee meeting over, Madam Chair¬ 
man? ” Carol appeared in the door of Joy’s 
room as Phyllis slowly came up the stairs. 
“ Come on in. We’re doing folders and things. 
—Oh! Dont sit on that! They’ve taken me 
nearly all afternoon! Although I don’t sup¬ 
pose they are as important as the Music is.” 

“Is it so very important? ” Phyllis asked 
wistfully, obediently delaying taking a seat 
until Carol had removed the half-dry array of 
folders. 

Carol shot her a swift look. “ Yes, I guess 
it is. We’ve always been pretty proud of our 
Christmas Music.” 

“ Somebody told me to-day the Chairman 
had nearly always been a senior.” 

“ We-11, perhaps she has. You’re part 
senior. Who told you? ” 

“ Somebody.” 

“Um! ‘Somebody’ usually does tell 
things. What’s the matter, Phyl? Won’t your 
Committee behave? ” 

Phyllis smiled a trifle wryly. “ Oh, yes! 


A FAERY PRINCESSE 


279 


They do that! They ‘ behave 9 beautifully. 
They’re terribly polite, but they don’t seem to 
be anything else!” 

“ Blanche! ” exploded Joyce from the cor¬ 
ner where she was painting. She dipped her 
brush savagely into a patch of brilliant color. 
“Bother Blanche! She can’t expect to get 
everything! ” 

“ I wouldn’t bother her,” Carol advised, re¬ 
garding Phyllis thoughtfully. “ Nor about 
her, either. Don’t worry about it, Phyl. It 
will all come right in the end.” 

“I can’t help it!” Phyllis mourned sadly. 
“ It won’t be the kind of a thing I wanted it to 
be!” 

“ Things never are.” Joyce spoke from 
experience. 

“ Joyce is a pessimist to-day,” Carol inter¬ 
posed quickly. “ She can’t make Mrs. Santa 
Claus’s portrait behave. There’s no Joy in her. 
She’s just plain Joyce! ” 

But, despite Carol’s cheerful predictions, 
Hillcrest Christmas music wasn't what Phyl¬ 
lis had wanted to make it, and yet it baffled 
even Mrs. Hilton and Miss Anderson to say 


280 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


what was wrong about it. It couldn’t be called 
a failure, the freshmen and the juniors saw to 
that, but it was simply a carefully planned 
program, with the last pitch of enthusiasm 
missing. 

“I hope Blanche is satisfied!” snapped 
Joyce, on their return from Hillcrest, Christ¬ 
mas Eve. 

Phyllis managed to contract a severe attack 
of laryngitis during the Christmas vacation. 
Where it came from, she couldn’t tell. It was 
misery enough to have it there! Phyllis won¬ 
dered if it were punishment for having been 
tempted to leave Hillcrest! At any rate, for 
the first three weeks after vacation, Phyllis was 
forced to remain at home, and, consequently, 
missed being on hand when Professor Knight, 
Dara’s father, came to Hillcrest to lecture on 
the Ancient History of France. 

“ He was good, too,” Joyce told her cousin. 
“ He didn’t sound a bit like a lecture or his¬ 
tory, but, afterward, he asked Thorny Path 
if Dara was a good history student.” 

“ Oh! ” Phyllis managed to croak. 

Joyce nodded, and sat down at the foot of 


A FAERY PRINCESSE 


281 


her cousin’s bed. “ Y r ou may well say so. 
Cousin-dear. Dara said she never felt so 
awful in her life, and Thorny Path smiled— 
smiled , can you imagine it, Phyllis Lancy?— 
and said she was one of the most brilliant 
scholars she had ever taught, although, at first, 
she had managed to mystify her completely, 
and then she told him the whole story, and she 
made it amusing! Dara’s father laughed, even 
though he scolded her afterward! ” 

“ Scolded Thorny-” Phyllis’ voice 

sounded like a fog-horn. 

“Are you really my cousin who can sing? 
No! Dara! But the funniest thing is that 
Dara can’t get used to the idea that she and 
Thorny Path actually like each other.” 

“ Hello! ” Emmie greeted her the first day 
she was well enough to go back to Hillcrest. 
“ Missed you! ” 

And Dara waved her hand to her across the 
Assembly Room. 

Phyllis came out of Assembly that morning 
with a singing heart. Miss Anderson had 
made an announcement. Hillcrest was going 
to give an operetta in the spring. Rehearsals 



282 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


would begin in a month. Those who desired 
roles would report to Mrs. Hilton that after¬ 
noon. Phyllis listened excitedly. “I Will 
Study and Prepare, and my Time Will 
Come! ” Was it really coming this time? She 
would never win a basket-ball game for Hill- 
crest, and there was no danger of her winning 
laurels in a track-meet or on the debating 
team, but she could sing! She had studied and 
prepared for that! 

And then she caught sight of Blanche Pen¬ 
rose in the senior aisle. Blanche was leaning 
forward, too, and there was something intent 
in her attitude. A little chilling doubt rose to 
cool Phyllis’ hopes. She could sing! Yes, but 
she was forced to admit that Blanche could 
sing, too, and there might be people who would 
prefer Blanche’s high, developed voice to Phyl¬ 
lis’ “ cream-and-honey ” one. And Blanche 
was a senior, a clever, pretty, popular senior, 
the President of her class, with more honors 
than Phyllis could remember, and Phyllis was 
Phyllis Lancy, a girl who belonged to no 
especial class, with an unsuccessful Christmas 
Music Committee for her record, and not much 


A FAERY PRINCESSE 


283 


of anything else. And then Blanche turned 
and looked at her. She smiled, but the smile 
made Phyllis more uncertain than ever. But 
this was a test of musical merit. If Blanche 
deserved a role more than she did, why, it was 
right that Blanche should have it. And there 
would be more than one role! 

But when Mrs. Hilton read the libretto of 
“ The Faery Princesse ” that afternoon, Phyl¬ 
lis forgot the high-minded stand she had taken 
in Assembly. She wanted the role of this 
lovely “ Faery Princesse ” who wandered away 
from her court one moonlit night and found it 
hard to wander back again, being misguided 
by elf and pixie because another Faery coveted 
her kingdom, but, finally, finding the Prince 
who had magic to set all aright and being led 
back for her coronation. 

Blanche Penrose, who could watch and listen 
at the same time, saw her “ rival’s ” hands were 
clenched. “ Rival ” was Blanche’s own name 
for her. She had made a commanding gesture 
when she saw Phyllis standing in the doorway 
of the room already rapidly filling with excited 
girls. Phyllis hesitated, but she had come over 


284 


THE 46 ICICLE ” MELTS 


to Blanche. Girls usually came when Blanche 
beckoned. 

“ Sit here. Rivals always sit together, I’ve 
heard.” 

“ But I’m not-” 

“Not my rival? I’m afraid you are! I 
want a leading role, and the Chairman of the 
Christmas Music Committee ought to have a 
very good chance for it! ” 

Phyllis flushed at the word “ ought! ” But 
this was different! This was Phyllis Lancy’s 
voice against Blanche Penrose’s, not the Chair¬ 
man of an unsuccessful committee against the 
popular senior President! 

But, as the try-out proceeded, and Mrs. 
Hilton ran over the music, some of it lilting, 
some of it tender, wistful, some of it trium¬ 
phant and soaring, Phyllis felt almost savage. 
Blanche or no Blanche, she wanted the role 
of the “ Princesse! ” She could sing it! She 
could! 

“ I Will Study and Prepare, and my Time Will 
Come.” 

But Phyllis had just recovered from laryn- 



A FAERY PRINCESSE 


285 


gitis; it made a difference. And Blanche, her 
head tilted a little back, sang sweetly, clearly, 
and, at the end, with a little note of triumph 
none of the rest had mastered. Phyllis knew 
then, as well as she knew two days later, when 
Mrs. Hilton announced the results of the try¬ 
out, who would have the precious role. 
Blanche Penrose was to be the “ Princesse.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


“ DOE YE NEXT THYNGE ” 

“ Well/’ demanded an impatient Joyce of 
the slowly approaching Phyllis, “ what did you 
get? You’re the Princesse, aren’t you? ” 

Phyllis shook her head. “No, that’s 
Blanche.” 

“ Oh, is it? Humph! Well, what role did 
you get? ” 

“ I’m—I’m in the chorus and—Blanche’s 
understudy.” 

“Her what?” Joyce stared at her cousin 
in blank amazement. “ Carol, did I hear my 
ears? Phyl Lancy, what possessed you to 
take such a job as that? ” 

Doe ye next thynge/ you know,” Phyl¬ 
lis quoted her suddenly-adopted motto, intent 
on tucking her books and papers in the leather 
book-bag she and Joyce shared together. It 
wouldn’t be safe to let them see her face just 
then! 


286 


“ DOE YE NEXT THYNGE ” 287 

Joyce sounded a little aggrieved. “ Well, 
I must say you take it coolly! ” 

There was an indescribable little sound, and 
Carol swung her around. “ Understudies are 
necessary things, and you’re going to be a 
good one,” she prophesied. “ Let’s go over to 
the pond. I learned a new figure while you 
were sick, and I’m so proud of it I want to 
show it to everybody who will watch me! 
Come along, Joy! ” 

“An understudy!” Even as she slipped 
into her skating shoes, Joyce was scornful. 
“ I’m almost ashamed of you, Phyl! ” 

“ I’d have been ashamed of her if she hadn't 
taken it. 4 The better part of valor is dis¬ 
cretion,’ you know, Joy.” Carol’s eyes twin¬ 
kled. 

Joyce sniffed. “Yes, I do now! But if 
you had quoted it yesterday , you’d have said 
that wisdom was the better part of it, just as 1 
did!” 

Carol was right; Phyllis did make a good 
understudy. Blanche couldn’t be 44 doeing ye 
next thynge ” any more faithfully than Phyl¬ 
lis was. She gave her whole heart and mind 


288 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


and body to the “ Faery Princesse,” entering 
into her various moods more fully than 
Blanche did sometimes, although her wistful- 
watching understudy had to admit that 
Blanche, with her yellow hair, silver voice, slen¬ 
der, small, pretty, was doing far better than she 
had imagined she would; that Blanche really 
seemed perfect for the role. Phyllis found 
herself wishing that she wasn’t. She was 
heartily ashamed of herself the next min¬ 
ute. 

“The idea!” she tried to scold herself. 
44 I’m ashamed of you, Phyllis Lancy! Blanche 
is the best Hillcrest has, and this 4 Faery 
Princesse ’ thing has got to be a success! ” 

44 But I don’t want Blanche to be our best! ” 
The Phyllis she was trying to stifle, wailed. 
44 1 don’t! You know I don’t! ” 

Phyllis got up from her lonely seat with a 
determined look about her chin. It wasn’t 
time yet for her own small part, but she must 
find something to take her mind away from 
Blanche! 

44 Phyllis!” Miss Kingsley, Mrs. Hilton’s 
assistant, caught her by the shoulder. 44 Will 


“DOE YE NEXT THYNGE ” 289 

you do me a favor? Run up and see if Miss 
Mar stead has anything we could use for 
Blanche’s crown. We really ought to begin 
practising the coronation scene to-day.” 

“ I’ll get something,” Phyllis promised. 

“ Oh-h! ” Miss Kingsley exclaimed wearily 
at sight of the silver paper and cardboard 
Phyllis brought back, “ there isn’t any one to 
put it together! I’m needed at the piano this 
minute! ” 

“ I’ll do it,” Phyllis offered. The little ante¬ 
room was comparatively quiet. Most of the 
girls were on the stage. The school orchestra 
was playing the lovely “At Eventide ” song of 
the Princesse. Something inside Phyllis be¬ 
gan to relax. After all, she could help the 
“ Faery Princesse ” to be a success. She had 
learned how, now, all you had to do was to 
go on “ doeing ye next thynge.” (Phyllis was 
grateful to Kits for the strenuous training for 
“ doeing next thynges ” she had given her with 
her demands that Phyllis provide her ever- 
increasing family of dolls with “ nevelators ” 
and a “ real car train.”) 

Blanche had taken up “At Eventide,” her 


290 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


clear voice weaving in and out, rising with the 
tender melody to its highest peak, and Phyllis’ 
“ next thynge ” castle tumbled to the ground. 

It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair! Blanche was 
only singing as if it was a pretty bit of music, 
a little difficult, to be conquered by her, but, 
to Phyllis, who loved music with that pas¬ 
sionate ardor only a true musician knows, it 
was the magic woods “ at eventide,” and Phyl¬ 
lis was sitting quietly behind the scenes, alone, 
making a crown for another Princesse! Why 
had that laryngitis had to come just when it 
did? Why hadn’t Mrs. Hilton understood her 
voice would come back? She loved that role of 
the Princesse so! Oh, it—it wasn’t fair! 

Phyllis carried a sorry frame of mind home 
with her from rehearsal. 

“ Hello,” Kits remarked amiably from the 
window-seat, where, according to Joy’s weak 
pun, she and Comfie were snuggled “ Com¬ 
fortably.” 

“ Hello, Comfort Kits,” Phyllis laughed, 
smoothing her copy of the “ Faery Princesse ” 
out of the tight roll into which she had twisted 
it on her way home. 


“DOE YE NEXT THYNGE ” 291 

Kits, who had listened attentively to Phyllis’ 
practicing the last few days, and had been so 
charmed with the story of the “ Faery Prin- 
cesse ” that Joyce had caught her trying to 
coerce a very bored Comfie into being a 
“ Pwince-boy,” looked on with interest. 

“ I’ve told Billy’s muvver about the Pwin- 
cess,” she observed; “ she’s coming to hear you 
sing about her.” 

“ Hear me, Kits? ” cried Phyllis, horror- 
stricken. “ But I’m not the Princesse, childie. 
That’s another girl! I told you about her. 
I’m—I’m just learning to sing about the Prin¬ 
cesse so if anything happens to her it won’t 
spoil all the other songs! ” 

“All right,” said Kits calmly, “I’ll tell 
Billy’s muvver something’s going to happen to 
that ovver girl.” 

Joyce, who had just come in, choked. 

“Oh, Kits! Please listen to Phyllis! That 
other girl isn’t going to have anything happen 
to her! And she’s going to be the nice Prin¬ 
cesse! You haven’t told anybody else, have 
you? ” 

“ Yes,” said Kits quite serenely, “ most esey- 


292 THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 

body. Yes, I do mean eseybody. They were 
glad” 

“I should think they would have been!” 
murmured Joyce. “ This is what you get for 
giving Somebody a private matinee, Phyl! ” 

“ But, Joy, it isn’t funny! ” pleaded the dis¬ 
tressed Phyllis. “ Lady Elizabeth will be 
furious if she hears! What shall I do? ” 

Joyce appeared to consider the matter 
gravely. 

“Let’s see: I think I heard Jerry say Esme 
Warren had the measles. Send Blanche to call 
on her.” 

“Joy! Kits, please understand, and tell 
everybody I am not going to be the Prin- 
cesse! ” 

Kits drew a disappointed lip. “ Then why 
do you sing about her so hard for? ” she de¬ 
manded tearfully. 

“ I want to know that myself, Kits,” Joyce 
put in. “ Really, Phyl, from the way you go 
at it anybody would think you might be plan¬ 
ning to push Blanche out of the way and be 
the Princesse yourself.” 

" Joy l ” 

Joy swung one foot around lazily. Joyce 



Joyce still enjoyed teasing her cousin.— Page 292 . 


































“ DOE YE NEXT THYNGE ” 293 

still enjoyed teasing her cousin. “Are you? ” 
she inquired innocently. 

Phyllis gathered her music together with 
dignity. Phyllis was trying to forget “ I Will 
Study and Prepare, and my Time Will Come!” 
She had adopted another motto now. 

And she found plenty of “ next thynges ” to 
“ doe ” these days. If there was an absentee 
from rehearsal, Phyllis, who knew the operetta 
by heart, substituted; if there was a missing 
page of music, it was Phyllis who hunted for 
it; when Mrs. Hilton thought it was time to 
give the “ Prince ” a few lessons in the manage¬ 
ment of her sword and cloak, it was Phyllis 
who flew away and returned with Miss Jack¬ 
son’s fencing rapier held triumphantly over her 
head, and a gay table-cover trailing over her 
arm. It was Phyllis—it was Phyllis who 
gradually came to know the ins and outs of 
the whole production, and it was Phyllis who 
had nothing short of an inspiration in regard 
to the crown problem. 

Phyllis’ hastily-made contraption plainly 
wouldn’t do; Blanche objected violently each 
time it was used, but nobody offered a substi¬ 
tute. 


294 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ I cant sing that Finale with that crown 
sliding over my eyes,” she complained plain¬ 
tively. “ I’m not Justice! And Amy always 
pokes the pins into my head when she puts it 
on!” 

“ ‘ Uneasy lies the head- 

“ Take my hat,” proposed the maligned 
Amy. “ It’s small, like a crown.” 

It was that which gave Phyllis her inspira¬ 
tion. If you took the frame of a small hat and 
covered it with whatever you wanted to use, 
wouldn’t it make a pretty and comfortable 
crown? It did. 

And it was Phyllis who taught discouraged 
little Doris Reade her rippling “ Page Song.” 

“ It’s easy, really, Dorrie.” 

“ It may be,” said the discouraged Dorrie 
dismally, “ when you know how, but I can’t 
make-” 

“Yes you can! Here, I’ll show you!” 
Phyllis ran over the song very softly. “ It 

just goes up and down, like- Oh! I know 

how I can make you understand! When I was 
little and first began to have singing lessons, 
my teacher told me to pretend the notes were 





“ DOE YE NEXT THYNGE ” 295 

steps for me to climb up and down. She said 
I had to be careful at first, but, by and by, I 
could run up and down them as easily as if 
they’d been real stairs! ” 

Doris giggled. “ It does sound like steps! ” 
she sang the song through herself. “ I slipped 
sometimes, but I’m going to climb up and 
down until I can just run! Y r ou listen to me 
next rehearsal! ” 

Phyllis promised, but she didn’t. Phyllis 
had too many other things to attend to when 
the next rehearsal came. 

She almost decided not to go to that last 
rehearsal. She wouldn’t be needed, and there 
had been no regular session that day, Miss An¬ 
derson wisely having decided to forego the 
usual routine. 

“Going to your rehearsal, Phyl? ” Jerry 
stood in the door. “ I’m going Hillcrest 
way myself. Better ride along.” 

Phyllis’ eyes rested on a new library book. 
“ I thought perhaps—they won’t need me this 
afternoon? ” 

Jerry raised his eyebrows. “ Sure? Better 
come.” 


296 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


After living in the same house for nearly a 
year, it was still a mystery to Phyllis as to what 
Jerry did to make people do the things they 
didn’t want to do! She found herself settling 
back in the low blue car, but she didn’t mind 
particularly. She didn’t mind anything to¬ 
day. Spring was so very near, the bluebird’s 
whistle was so very sweet; she was beginning 
to like Hillcrest so very much, and Grand¬ 
father had promised she could stay there until 
she was ready for college. She gave a little 
wiggle of satisfaction. 

“Are you going to Hillcrest, Jerry? ” It 
suddenly occurred to her what her cousin had 
said. “ Is anybody ill? ” 

Jerry shifted gears. “ Miss Jackson thinks 
one of the girls has a broken arm.” 

“ Oh! The poor thing! And to-night the 
first night of the operetta! She must feel 
dreadfully.” 

“ I shouldn’t be at all surprised! ” 

“ Who is she, do you know? ” 

“ I think her name is Blanche; Blanche Pen¬ 
rose.” 

Phyllis didn’t remember the rest of the drive. 


“DOE YE NEXT THYNGE 99 297 

She thought Jerry said, “Don’t you think 
they may want you now?” But she wasn’t 
sure. If he did, she didn’t answer him. She 
didn’t remember anything very well until Carol 
met her at the pupil’s entrance and seized her 
by the hand without saying a word until Phyl¬ 
lis attempted to break into a run. Then she 
held her back firmly. 

“ You’d better walk, you know. You’ve 
got to sing.” 

“But what happened? Poor Blanche! 

How-” 

“ Tripped on that third step. Of course she 
would break something— now! ” 

Phyllis’ head whirled when she reached the 
auditorium. This wasn’t the same place where 
she had attended rehearsals for nearly six 
weeks! Girls flying about, frightened and 
upset; everybody talking as excitedly as they 
could, all at once; Miss Anderson herself com¬ 
ing forward. 

“ Miss Lancy, as you probably have heard 
already, Miss Penrose has met with a most 
unfortunate accident. As her understudy, you 
will take the role of the Princesse.” 



CHAPTER XXIV 


“ PHYLLIS THE ICICLE ” DISAPPEARS 

The rest of the afternoon was a nightmare 
to poor Phyllis, a nightmare of frightened girls 
scurrying about on last-minute errands, of 
grim-faced teachers making quick alterations 
in the Princesse costume and giving rapid di¬ 
rections, of the wailing noise of the orchestra 
tuning their instruments, all mingled together 
in a horrible chaos. 

“You know each of the Princesse’s cues? ” 
Miss Kingsley was asking, her voice a little 
muffled because of the pins in her mouth. 

Phyllis was sure that, if she tried to answer, 
she would scream, so she merely nodded. 
Being intent on the hem of Phyllis’ dress, how¬ 
ever, Miss Kingsley could not see the nod. 
She spoke again, sharply: 

“ Are you sure you know your cues? Per¬ 
haps we’d better have the prompter-” 

The prompter would be the last straw. And 
she had known the cues that morning. 

298 



THE “ ICICLE ” DISAPPEARS 299 

“ I am sure, Ann.” To hear Mrs. Hilton 
speak like that about you was worth having 
Miss Kingsley run a needle into your knee. 
“ I am sure about everything where the Prin- 
cesse is concerned. We can depend on Phyl¬ 
lis.” 

But she was gone before Phyllis could open 
her lips to tell her that they couldn’t; that she 
didn't know the cues; that her throat was 
dreadfully swollen, and her ears felt ready to 
burst; that her voice had deserted her, and that 
never before had she felt so lonely and sick and 
miserable. 

“ What is it? ” Miss Kingsley looked at her 
anxiously. “ You shivered.” 

“ Nothing,” said Phyllis. But there was! 
There was! It had been so easy to promise 

Grandfather that—but this- Oh, this was 

different! They couldn’t expect her- 

But they did. Mrs. Hilton had said, so 
calmly and steadily when everything else was 
turning upside down: “ I am sure about every¬ 
thing where the Princesse is concerned. We 
can depend on Phyllis.” 

Something began to chant in her ear. 





300 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


“ Lancy house a motto hast; 

Lancys down the years have passed: 

Lancy Honor is Steadfast! ” 

Nobody except Phyllis expected that re¬ 
hearsal to be a success, but everybody was 
more depressed when it was over. The or¬ 
chestra had lagged and was miserably out of 
tune; the prompter lost her place, much to the 
embarrassment of the courtiers who took that 
opportunity to forget their lines; and Phyllis 
Lancy’s voice, which only the day before would 
have reached the farthest corner of the audi¬ 
torium, failed her. 

“ It will be a perfectly disgusting failure! ” 
the dispirited “ Prince” sat wearily down on 
the nearest thing she saw—a convenient-sized 
box which gave forth a complaining-sounding 
groan. 

“Mary! Get up!” pleaded Francie. 
“ Quick! That’s the box with the moon thing 
in it! If you smash-” 

“Perhaps I’d better!” Mary didn’t stir. 
“ Then we couldn’t disgrace Hillcrest with a 
failure.” 

Phyllis sympathized with them. They had 




THE “ ICICLE ” DISAPPEARS 


301 


all worked so hard, and now—at the last min¬ 
ute—it wouldn’t have happened with Blanche. 
Mrs. Hilton had been right not to give her an 
important role in the first place. Oh, she was 

acting—and for a girl who wanted to sing- 

Aunt Margaret was very kind. She let 
Phyllis wander from room to room, touching 
and rearranging things with fingers that 
wouldn’t be still. An annoying little ache had 
risen up and closed Phyllis’ throat. But she 
couldn’t have cried if she had dared. And, oh, 
she wanted her mother so! 

“ So you’re going to have a chance to really 
sing, are you? ” asked Uncle Rob. “ You cer¬ 
tainly have my congratulations, Phyl. Of 

course, I’m sorry for the other girl, but-” 

“ She won’t have to have stage-fright,” said 
Phyllis briefly, toying with a spoon. 

“ A girl I knew told me she always pre¬ 
tended her audiences were made up of 
cabbage-heads,” suggested Aunt Margaret. 
“ Suppose you try it to-night, dear.” 

“ Intelligent audience,” murmured Jerry. 

“ Phyl can’t get stage-fright,” announced 
Joyce from the safety-zone of the opposite 





302 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


side of the table. “ She doesn’t dare! Every¬ 
body’s depending on her to save the operetta, 
and 4 Lancy Honor is Steadfast! ’ ” 

Joyce, too! It was fortunate Mr. Jeremiah 
Lancy was not there, for Phyllis was goaded 
into treason: 

“Lancys! Lancys! Lancys!” she cried 
with the energy Mrs. Hilton had tried in 
vain to rouse that afternoon. 44 Lancy Honor 
is Steadfast! I hate that motto! And I hate 
the Lancys, too! Yes, I do! I wish every 
single one of them was at the bottom of the 
sea! ” 

Jerry chuckled into the silence. 44 I’m not! ” 
he said. 44 But I am going up to pay an even¬ 
ing call on Miss Blanche Penrose. Would 
you like to ride along, Phyl? ” 

Joyce promptly accepted the invitation. 
44 Of course, we’ll ride. But Phyl has to be 
there at seven, you know.” 

Phyllis was too utterly miserable even to try 
to keep the flash of despair out of her eyes, but 
J erry shook his head gently. 

44 Sorry, Joy, hut the car that’s honored with 
the presence of the Faery Princesse can’t take 


THE “ ICICLE ” DISAPPEARS 


303 


a commoner on the same trip! All right, Phyl, 
I’ll be ready when you are.” 

He was. It would have been a pleasant ride 
on any other night, but now even the fragrant 
little spring wind against her cheeks didn’t cool 
them. Jerry looked meditatively at the moon¬ 
lit road ahead of him. He was driving slowly, 
and Phyllis caught a shadowy glimpse of the 
yellow forsythia which bordered Madam Hal¬ 
stead’s grounds, and the long, sloping stretch 
of newly-made lawn which ran directly to Hill- 
crest’s stone boundarv walls, and which had 
resembled a great mud-pie in the past few 
weeks since the snow had disappeared, and now 
was beginning to show a fine covering of green, 
tender grass. Phyllis couldn’t see the grass 
now, but Jerry waved a hand in its direction. 

“ That the lawn Joy said was as much fun 
to watch as it had been to watch Kits grow 
hair? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And Dara said Madam would soon have to 
have it bobbed? ” 

In spite of the weight against her heart, 
Phyllis giggled. 


304 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


The car swung around a curve. The warm 
little breeze was scented from having come 
over freshly-ploughed fields. Phyllis would 
always remember that ride, on moonlight 
nights in spring when she passed a newly 
turned field. 

“ I like that odor,” Jerry commented. “ It 
makes me think of daffodils and tulips—and 
fleurs-de-lis.” They were at the Hillcrest en¬ 
trance now, winding up the long, broad drive¬ 
way, and Jerry smiled at her under the wel¬ 
coming light. “ Good luck go with you, 
Phyl.” 

Phyllis tried to flash him an answering smile, 
and succeeded in making her lips tremble om¬ 
inously. She almost envied Blanche, lying 
quietly in the infirmary with an arm in splints. 
Blanche didn’t have to know that success or 
failure rested with her, at least! 

Dara, one of the pupils chosen to help in the 
dressing-room, detached herself from a busy 
group as Phyllis entered, and came forward to 
drop a profound curtsey. 

“ I have had the great honor to be appointed 
Mistress-of-the-Robes to your Royal High- 


THE “ICICLE” DISAPPEARS 305 

ness,” she informed her charge, deftly steering 
her towards the most secluded corner of the 
room. “ All the girls have turned their backs 
on me out of envy, but, to-morrow, they’ll be 
looking at me again just because I helped 
Phyllis Lancy to dress.” 

“ Dara—I —please don’t! I’m going to 
fail-” 

Dara shook a grieved head. 

“ Ah! Your Highness! It pains me to hold 
an opinion differing from your own,—turn 
around, Phyl!—but, I assure you, Your High¬ 
ness has no such intention! ” 

“ If you had been at rehearsal this after¬ 
noon -” 

“ Reports reached me, Your Highness. 
(Can’t I converse beautifully with royalty, 
Phyl?) and I congratulate Your Highness on 
having the sense to retain your best ammuni¬ 
tion for this evening. There! My most gra¬ 
cious Princesse, I salute you! ” 

Which she did, much to the detriment of a 
box of stage-properties which had been stand¬ 
ing at her elbow. 

“ I didn’t mean to do it, Miss Kingsley! ” 




306 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


she apologized, gazing ruefully" at the damage, 
“ but you see, your Highness,” she added aside 
to Phyllis, “ how much we are willing to sac¬ 
rifice in your honor! ” 

“ It’s time Her Honor was getting up to the 
ante-room,” announced Francie, coming up. 
“ Mrs. Hilton says so.” 

“ Her Highness, you mean,” corrected 
Dara. “ I’m ashamed of you, Francie! Even 
if you are one of her disloyal courtiers, you 
should know how to address your Princesse! ” 

“I don’t know anything to-night!” said 
Francie curtly. 

Phyllis didn’t blame her, but standing in the 
little ante-room with the rest of the principals, 
Phyllis knew several things too many. Worst 
of all, she was going to fail the Lancy Motto, 
the motto the Lancys had passed stainless 
down the years. And this was not the first 
time the fate of an enterprise had rested with 
a Lancy, but it would be the first time a Lancy 
had failed in his trust. If only her name were 
Jones or—or Kelly —anything but Lancy! 
But it wasn’t! It wasn’t! And in another 
two- 




THE “ ICICLE ” DISAPPEARS 


307 


And then the door opened. It opened 
quietly, but, even so, the girls jumped ner¬ 
vously. It was only one of the ushers. She 
held out a perfect specimen of a hothouse fleur- 
de-lis. 

“ Dr. Lancy sent it to you, Phyl.” 

Phyllis couldn’t even thank her. She simply 
held out her hand for the flower. Jerry had 
gotten this for her. Jerry had sent her this 
talisman, “purple for victory!” 

Outside, in the dim auditorium, quiet suc¬ 
ceeded the rustling. The orchestra swayed 
into the operetta’s overture. And the listen¬ 
ing girls in the ante-room realized suddenly 
that something was happening to Phyllis. She 
didn’t look as if she knew they were there. She 
didn’t. Phyllis, leaning forward to catch every 
note of that dancing, lilting strain, forgot it 
was only a play, forgot she was a very fright¬ 
ened understudy going out to disgrace the 
name of Lancy in another two minutes, forgot 
everything except that she was the Faery Prin- 
cesse, that the music was coaxing her to come 
out—calling her- 

“ Now! Princesse! ” whispered the prompter, 



308 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


but Phyllis never heard her. She had an¬ 
swered the music and was slowly entering her 
magic woodland, and, into the waiting room, 
high, and clear, and sweet, and true, rose the 
voice of Phyllis Lancy. 

“ Not until it is entirely over,” Mrs. Hilton 
had warned, so it was not until the last song 
had been sung to an enthusiastic audience did 
her fellow-actors dare crowd about her, and, 
regardless of their fragile costumes, take Phyl¬ 
lis literally to their hearts and tell her what 
they thought of her: 

“ Phyl Lancy, you’re great! ” 

“ Princesse, you were too spiffily-doodle for 
words! ” 

“You’re certainly all right, Phyl-girl!” 

“We’ll never forget this, Princesse!” 

“ My child, we’ll love you forever! ” 

An usher appeared in the door. She was 
excited. “ Lady—Miss Anderson wants you 
to go back and stand on the throne, Phyl.” 

But Phyllis was suddenly shy. “ They— 
they don’t want me,” she said deprecatingly. 
“ It’s the Faery Princesse-” 



THE “ ICICLE ” DISAPPEARS 309 

“ Don’t want you? ” demanded Dara. 
“Listen, child!” 

From out the crowded auditorium came once 
more the sound of jubilant voices: 

“Phyllis JLancy! Phyl-lis Lan-cy! Phyl¬ 
lis Lan-cy!” 

“ Go back! ” Dara commanded with a little 
shove. “ Don’t be so silly! Go! ” 

So, once more, Phyllis stood, a Faery Prin- 
cesse, on the steps of her throne. The ap¬ 
plause died down to ah almost frightening si¬ 
lence, and then Phyllis saw the Principal 
standing on the little platform from which 
Mrs. Hilton had led the orchestra. 

“ Dear friends,” she was saying, “ you were 
told to-night that Hillcrest had suffered a 
grave disappointment because Miss Penrose, 
whose name appears on your programs as the 
Faery Princesse, was unable to appear. There 
was an understudy for the part, but under¬ 
studies are usually second-bests. You can ap¬ 
preciate, therefore, the anxiety Hillcrest suf¬ 
fered to-day. But our success was safe in the 
hands of the understudy we had chosen. If 
she was disappointed not to have had a more 


310 


THE “ ICICLE ” MELTS 


active part, she never showed it, but she was 
faithful in doing the least thing she could for 
the ‘ Faery Princesse,’ and those who were 
working for it, and when Hillerest called her 
to ‘ doe ye next thynge ’ and take Miss Pen¬ 
rose’s place—you know she did not fail us.” 

The quiet voice stopped for a moment, and 
then went on: “At Hillcrest we have a trib¬ 
ute we give to those who have won our love and 
admiration with some high victory, especially 
a victory over their own selves. I have been 
asked if the school may give it to Phyllis 
Lancy to-night—our Salute Song—and I give 
my permission.” 

The world turned black for Phyllis for a 
minute. The Salute Song! Why, it was the 
highest tribute Hillcrest had to give, and she 
—she didn’t deserve it in the least! 

But, suddenly, Hillcrest girls, the very 
dearest girls in all the world, were on their feet, 
singing, and Phyllis, her eyes wet, cheeks 
aflame, stood and watched “ Phyllis the 
Icicle ” disappear from her sight forever. 


THE END 









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